Glasbey 48
Generated maximally-distinct set (glasbey-style)
-
#d94141 -
#479e61 -
#9d1ef7 -
#faed91 -
#41bfd9 -
#9e4776 -
#54f71e -
#9591fa -
#d97441 -
#479e7e -
#e61ef7 -
#e4fa91 -
#418dd9 -
#9e4759 -
#1ef730 -
#b991fa -
#d9a641 -
#479e9b -
#f71ec0 -
#c1fa91 -
#415ad9 -
#9e5247 -
#1ef779 -
#dc91fa -
#d8d941 -
#47849e -
#f71e78 -
#9efa91 -
#5b41d9 -
#9e6f47 -
#1ef7c2 -
#fa91f5 -
#a6d941 -
#47679e -
#f71e2f -
#91faa7 -
#8e41d9 -
#9e8c47 -
#1ee4f7 -
#fa91d2 -
#73d941 -
#474a9e -
#f7551e -
#91faca -
#c041d9 -
#939e47 -
#1e9bf7 -
#fa91af
On a map
A synthetic demo grid, classed with equal intervals — the point is the palette against real basemap ink, not the data. Switch themes to see how much basemap the palette leaves room for.
Metadata
Provenance
Chris Glasbey and colleagues described the method in 2007: rather than picking colors by eye, generate a categorical sequence by repeatedly choosing the color furthest from every color already chosen, measured in a perceptually uniform space. The best-known implementation ships in colorcet under CC BY 4.0, which is where the family gets its name. The 48 values here were precomputed offline as a glasbey-style approximation — a golden-angle sweep across saturation and value tiers — and are intended to be regenerated with a proper glasbey or iwanthue run to tighten distinctness.
When to use it
Forty-eight colors is past what any legend can carry, so this is not a palette you choose — it is the fallback when a categorical field has more classes than a designed set can hold and the map still needs each one distinguishable on hover or click. Use it for exploratory views of high-cardinality fields (parcels by owner, segments by route id) and pair it with interactive identification rather than a legend. It is emphatically not colorblind-safe at this size and it is a very loud palette, so it needs the quietest basemap you have.
License
Original work (map-party, MIT) — golden-angle maximally-distinct set, method credit Glasbey et al. 2007 · source
The color specification carries this license, which is separate from the MIT license on this site. See attribution.