To map Excel data by state or county you only need two columns: the place and a number. Copy them, paste them into the county map maker and the map colors itself right away, with a legend. Here’s how to set up the spreadsheet, a real example with median income in every state, and how to deal with the county names that trip everyone up.
What you need: two columns
One column with the place and one with the value. The first row can hold headers or not:
| State | Median household income ($) |
|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 103960 |
| Maryland | 103678 |
| New Jersey | 103556 |
| Mississippi | 56447 |
| … | … |
The place can be written in different ways:
- States: the full name, the two-letter postal abbreviation or the 2-digit FIPS code (06 is California). In our test, “Massachusetts”, “MD”, “34” and “mississippi” in lowercase all matched; an old-style abbreviation like “Calif.” didn’t.
- Counties: the name with its state (“Cook County, IL”, “Cook County (Illinois)”) or the 5-digit FIPS code: the state’s 2 digits plus the county’s 3. 06037 is Los Angeles County; 17031, Cook County.
The FIPS code is the safest choice. Excel tends to drop its leading zero (6037 instead of 06037), but the tool reads it either way.
Step by step
- In Excel, select both columns (with headers, if they have them) and copy them with Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on a Mac).
- Open the county map maker. Under Your data is by, choose US counties or US states, press Clear and paste with Ctrl+V.
- Check the count below the box, for example “4 of 5 matched”. Rows it can’t match are listed under Not matched, with their line and the reason, so you can fix them.
- Type a Map title and a Data name: they show up in the legend.
- Under Breaks, pick Quantiles, Equal or Custom, and the number of Colors, from 2 to 6.
- Download it. The state map comes as PNG, SVG or PDF, with Copy link to share it; the county map, with Download image and Share. The link carries your data inside it.
The example: median household income by state
This guide’s button opens the map with median household income in each state and DC, from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates (table B19013, in 2024 dollars), released on January 29, 2026. The figure for the whole country is $80,734.
| Four highest | $ | Four lowest | $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 109,870 | Arkansas | 60,773 |
| Massachusetts | 103,960 | Louisiana | 60,756 |
| Maryland | 103,678 | West Virginia | 59,608 |
| New Jersey | 103,556 | Mississippi | 56,447 |
DC and Mississippi are $53,423 apart.
Quantiles or equal intervals
The map starts with quantiles: each color gets about the same number of states, and the breaks are rounded to numbers that are easy to read. It’s the best way to see how places rank. One catch: rounding can merge classes. With this guide’s income data, we asked for five colors and got three (under $75,000, $75,000 to $100,000 and $100,000 or more).
With equal intervals, every color covers about the same range of values. That’s what this guide’s button opens: from $56,447 to $109,870, the breaks come out at rounded steps of about $11,000:
| Class | States (and DC) |
|---|---|
| Under $67,000 | 8 |
| $67,000 to $78,000 | 20 |
| $78,000 to $89,000 | 9 |
| $89,000 to $99,000 | 7 |
| $99,000 or more | 7 |
Use it when the size of the gaps matters, but watch out: one outlier can push almost everyone into the same couple of colors.
With your own breaks, you type them: for example, above and below the national figure.
Counties: the name problem
County names repeat a lot. In the Census Bureau’s list of 3,144 counties and county equivalents there are 30 Washington Counties, 25 Jefferson Counties, 24 Franklin Counties and 23 each of Jackson and Lincoln. A row with just “Washington County” can’t be mapped without knowing the state: the tool lists it as not matched and names the first few candidates, from Alabama to Florida.
Three ways to fix it:
- Use the 5-digit FIPS code. It’s unique, and many government data files already include it.
- Write the state in the same cell: “Washington County, OR” or “Washington County (Oregon)”.
- Add a separate column with the state and pick it under State column (for repeated names).
Louisiana’s parishes, Alaska’s boroughs and census areas, and Virginia’s independent cities are all in the list as county equivalents, with their own codes.
What about Excel’s own map chart?
Excel can draw maps too, with the Filled Map chart. According to Microsoft’s help, you make one like this:
- Select the list of places and go to Data > Data Types > Geography.
- Select a cell in the data and go to Insert > Charts > Maps > Filled Map.
- If the preview looks right, select OK.
It has three catches: it needs a Microsoft 365 subscription, it needs an internet connection to create the map (it uses Bing Maps), and Microsoft warns that ambiguous names can be mapped to the wrong place. Its advice is to put each level in its own column, such as county and state. It also can’t map street addresses or latitude and longitude: for those, see how to map addresses from a spreadsheet.
If you want ready-made maps of income, age or population by county instead of your own numbers, the thematic maps already have them from the Census Bureau.