What Does The Blue Line Mean On Google Maps?

Derevianko Dmytro/Getty Images

There may a few Google Maps features you’re missing out on, but the experience should be straightforward for most users. The digital map reflects real-world geography and road design, and the color scheme is aimed at easy interpretation. But in some cases, the features of a city’s layout may cause confusion. Waterways, which appear in blue, may be interpreted as a type of road, even though roads are gray in Google Maps as of a 2023 redesign. 

That can happen in cities with canals arranged in a grid, for example. In most cases, a blue line on Google Maps means a man-made body of water. Before 2023, roads were rendered in yellow, while water had a dark blue appearance. The reason blue may cause confusion in Google Maps comes from how Google applies the color. Blue designates water on the map, whether it’s a lake, sea, ocean, river, or a canal. A darker shade of blue is used for turn-by-turn navigation, showing your route on the map. 

Finally, Google uses a hue closer to teal when highlighting areas on the map that are covered by Street View, the mode for inspecting places virtually, using imagery captured by Google’s fleet of cars or contributed by users. Once you understand which shade of blue is a permanent representation on the map, and which one is an overlay, it becomes easier to determine what the blue lines mean on Google Maps.

Demiano Silva/Shutterstock

Google Maps underwent a major redesign starting in 2020, changing both the user interface and 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 turn 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 overhaul, Google reduced the palette of colors from over 700 to just 25. The dark blue that depicted water before the update became lighter in the new version, though roads initially remained rendered in yellow. In 2021, the company added more detail to roads, including sidewalks, crosswalks, and islands, to make navigation easier on a global scale. A year later, Google introduced Immersive View, a mode that combined Street View data with aerial images to offer users 3D models of specific places. 

The big AI-powered Google Maps redesign came in late 2023, when Google updated the app with a new color palette for roads and cities. Some users complained about the drastic changes, as the familiar Google Maps was replaced with a new navigation experience. Roads turned from yellow to gray, and waterways changed to light blue. Fortunately, you’ll see the same color scheme whether you use Google Maps on Android, iPhone, or the web.

In Default mode, Google Maps uses gray for roads and light blue for water. If you see straight blue lines in this mode and are unsure what they are, switch to Satellite mode for a better look. Waterways will appear in blue, including canals arranged in grid-like patterns. It’s important to note that blue elements in Default mode are a permanent representation, and that waterways generally have names, just like streets. Enabling Street View will bring a teal overlay on the streets, and indicates areas that have been mapped by Google’s Street View cars. 

Tapping on these teal highlights will let you virtually walk the area. Finally, the huge public transportation update to Google Maps from 2025 means the Transit layer will display available transit lines in various colors, including blue. However, like Street View, Transit mode appears only if you enable it, and blue colors appearing in these modes are unrelated to a region’s geography. New Google Maps users can familiarize themselves with the different colors by inspecting the various 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.