# Planar graph with a chromatic number of 4 where all vertices have a degree of 4.

Is it possible to have a planar graph with a chromatic number of $4$ such that all vertices have degree $4$?

Every time I try to make the degree condition to work on a graph, it loses its planarity.

Here is an example.

The graph is 4 regular and 4 colorable. However, it's not possible to color its vertices with 3 colors. The picture shows a partial coloring that cannot be extended to the whole graph.

• Is it a problem that there are two black adjacent vertices? – apnorton Dec 8 '13 at 22:15
• @anorton, the coloring was incorrect. I fixed it. – Yury Dec 9 '13 at 20:06
• Actually, this image doesn't show the 4 coloring. It shows a partial 3-coloring that cannot be extended to a valid 3-coloring of the entire graph. It's not hard to color the graph in 4 colors. – Yury Dec 9 '13 at 20:09
• Ah-ok. That makes sense. – apnorton Dec 9 '13 at 21:31
• This graph is more symmetric than it looks, by the way. It's the graph of a square antiprism, and is vertex-transitive. – Henning Makholm Jul 13 '18 at 12:03

Gerhard Koester in 1985 constructed infinitely many planar 4-regular graphs that not only are 4-chromatic, but also 4-critical, that is, all their proper subgraphs are 3-colorable.

The only planar 3-regular 4-critical graph is the complete graph of order 4, by Brooks's Theorem. Curiously it is known that no 5-regular planar graph is 4-critical. But I am not aware of any proof that every 5-regular planar graph is 4-colorable, without using the Four Color Theorem.