How to color a map programmatically

Map coloring is a very nice introductory problem to constraint programming. This article describes two aspects of creating a map coloring application: the problem itself, and the presentation of the solution.

Given a graph G=(V,E) with vertices V and edges E in between, what is the minimum number of colors needed such that two adjacent vertices, v1 and v2, have different colors?

One obvious application of this problem is in the construction of maps with adjacent regions that can easily be distinguished by their colors.

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