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Google Maps color coding can help you quickly find the location you’re looking for without wasting too much time trying to locate yourself on a map.
Google Maps is the best option when you want find a route to any location. This fantastic service, owned by the great G, offers very useful functions to avoid traffic jams on your trips or to share your current location, among others.
Also, to enhance your experience, Google Maps is color coded to help you find the locations you’re looking for more easily, but, Do you know what each color means? Well, in this article we will help you discover it.
Google Maps and the meaning of its colors
Google Maps has color coding that will help you find anything on a map without major problems
One of the lesser-known features of Google Maps is its color codes, designed to help users find places and locations instantly without having to try too hard to find them. The company actually based the color coding of their maps on many studies and research.
The main idea is to take a minimalist approach and create a more detailed representation of specific locations and places on maps. Each color is mapping based on the type of location reflected on the map, and we’ll go over that in detail below.
streets and highways
Do you want to easily locate a street or a road on Google maps? This is what you should keep in mind:
- Yellow: represents highways and main streets within a city. The main streets have a little less color and look more yellow, while the highways are marked in a more orange tone.
- White: it is used for highways and regular city streets.
- Parallel white stripes: It is used for parking lots. Not all parking lots will be identified with this color, but some will, such as airport parking lots.
- dark green lines: they mean that there is a pedestrian or bicycle route, and they can be within a city or a green area, such as a park.
- Dark Gray Lines: if they are thick, they represent an underground road, and if they are very thin, they represent a railway.
And what about the traffic?
If you need to get around your city and you’re not sure what the traffic is like, this can help:
- Green: this color means there should be no traffic delays.
- Orange: this color means that there is some traffic and therefore it will slightly affect the displacement on your route.
- Red: light red on the street means heavy traffic and that an accident or construction is causing it. Dark red means there is very heavy traffic on your route.
- Blue: The blue color only appears on roads if you select the “Directions” option. It means that the roads are clear with little or no traffic.
Nature also has its own colors
Nature also has its space within the color coding on Google Maps
If nature is your thing, it won’t be difficult to find your favorite places on Google Maps:
- Dark brown: thanks to this color you will be able to identify public beaches.
- Blue: This color shows you water and rivers in a given location.
- Brown: in this case, the different shades of brown can represent various things, such as a desert, a set of mountains or even a national park. The company’s name for this color is “natural sand,” and places that don’t use it will usually be labeled to make things easier for you.
- Green: Google Maps uses two types of green, one for natural vegetation and one for nature reserves. This includes places like trees on sidewalks, trails, parks, and other natural areas.
Buildings
Buildings also have their own color coding so you can more easily locate them on Google Maps:
- Gray: for non-commercial areas (mainly residential). Regular residential areas are represented in light gray. Dark gray is used to symbolize unique sites, such as airports and some industrial areas, along with larger university campuses.
- Red: this color symbolizes doctors or hospitals, health centers and sometimes nursing homes.
- Light brown: it is the color that demarcates commercial areas and buildings.
You should know that if you download and use maps offline, all of this data and color coding will remain as if you were looking at an online map.
Related topics: Applications
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