Oranges
ColorBrewer 2.0 (Brewer & Harrower)
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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
Oranges is a single-hue sequential scheme from ColorBrewer, the cartographic palette system created by Cynthia Brewer with Mark Harrower at Penn State and released on the web in 2002. It was drawn from Brewer's map-reading research, which tested schemes for how well ordinary readers could rank classes on a thematic map under real display and print conditions. The warm single-hue ramps were included specifically so mapmakers had a heat-coded alternative to blue without falling back on an uncontrolled rainbow.
When to use it
Oranges reads as intensity or heat, which suits fire risk, temperature anomalies, incident counts, and other fields where the high end is the story. It sits well on grey and muted basemaps and stays distinguishable from most blue-green reference cartography, so it rarely collides with water or parks. Because the top two steps are strongly saturated, pair it with a restrained basemap and avoid stacking a second warm layer on top.
License
Apache-style ColorBrewer License (attribution required) · source
The color specification carries this license, which is separate from the MIT license on this site. See attribution.