Viridis
viridis (matplotlib — van der Walt & Smith)
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#fde725 -
#5ec962 -
#21918c -
#3b528b -
#440154
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
Viridis was designed in 2015 by Nathaniel Smith and Stéfan van der Walt, with Eric Firing, as the replacement default colormap for matplotlib 2.0. The brief was explicit: perceptually uniform lightness, so equal steps in data read as equal steps in color, and legible to viewers with red-green color vision deficiency — everything the old `jet` rainbow was not. The authors released it into the public domain under CC0 so it could spread without friction, and it since has: matplotlib, R, D3, and most of the scientific plotting world ship it.
When to use it
Reach for viridis on any single-direction numeric field where you want the reader to rank values reliably — density, elevation, travel time, counts per polygon. Its monotonic lightness ramp means it survives grayscale printing and stays readable for all three CVD types, which makes it the safe default when you do not know your audience. It is a fairly loud palette, though: give it a quiet basemap, because the dark purple end will fight busy imagery or a saturated dark style.
License
CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication) · source
The color specification carries this license, which is separate from the MIT license on this site. See attribution.