You may miss a few Google Maps features, but the experience should be simple for most users. The digital map reflects real-world geography and road design, and the color palette is intended to facilitate interpretation. But in some cases, the characteristics of a city’s layout can be confusing. Waterways, which appear blue, can be interpreted as a type of road, although roads are gray on Google Maps since a 2023 redesign.
This can happen for example in cities with canals arranged in a grid. In most cases, a blue line on Google Maps denotes an artificial body of water. Before 2023, the roads were yellow, while the water looked dark blue. The reason blue can be confusing in Google Maps comes from how Google applies the color. Blue denotes water on the map, whether it’s a lake, sea, ocean, river, or canal. A darker shade of blue is used for turn-by-turn navigation, showing your route on the map.
Finally, Google uses a shade closer to teal to highlight areas of the map covered by Street View, the virtual location inspection mode, using images captured by Google’s fleet of cars or provided by users. Once you understand which shade of blue is a permanent representation on the map and which is an overlay, it becomes easier to determine the meaning of the blue lines on Google Maps.
The big overhaul of Google Maps
Google Maps underwent a major overhaul starting in 2020, changing both the user interface and the appearance of the map layer. That summer, Google rolled out a Maps app with more colors and a higher degree of accuracy. The company used new algorithms to transform satellite imagery into a more comprehensive and colorful map of the world, intended to bring Google Maps closer to real-world terrain and geography.
As part of this redesign, Google reduced the color palette from over 700 to just 25. The dark blue that represented water before the update became lighter in the new version, although roads initially remained yellow. In 2021, the company added more details to roads, including sidewalks, crosswalks, and islands, to make navigation easier on a global scale. A year later, Google introduced Immersive View, a mode combining Street View data with aerial images to offer users 3D models of specific locations.
The big AI-driven overhaul of Google Maps came in late 2023, when Google updated the app with a new color scheme for roads and cities. Some users have complained about the drastic changes, as the old Google Maps has been replaced with a new navigation experience. Roads changed from yellow to gray and waterways changed to light blue. Luckily, you’ll see the same color palette whether you’re using Google Maps on Android, iPhone, or the web.
Differentiate between different shades of blue
In default mode, Google Maps uses gray for roads and light blue for water. If you see straight blue lines in this mode and don’t know what they are, switch to Satellite mode for a better view. Waterways will appear blue, including canals arranged in a grid pattern. It is important to note that the blue elements in Default mode are a permanent representation and that waterways usually have names, just like streets. Enabling Street View will bring a teal overlay to streets and indicate areas mapped by Google’s Street View cars.
By tapping on these teal highlights, you will be able to virtually scan the area. Finally, Google Maps’ huge public transportation update starting in 2025 means that the Transit layer will show available transit lines in different colors, including blue. However, like Street View, Transit mode only appears if you enable it, and the blue colors appearing in these modes have no relation to the geography of an area. New Google Maps users can familiarize themselves with the different colors by inspecting the different modes in multiple cities. Amsterdam is a good place to start, thanks to the many canals that appear as straight blue lines in the app.
