The Hadwiger conjecture is a generalization of the four-color theorem which states that for any loopless graph with Hadwiger number
and chromatic
number
,
(Hadwiger 1943).
The case
is equivalent to the four-color theorem, so
the proof of the latter established the conjecture for this case. The conjecture
was subsequently proven for
by Robertson et al. (1993). However, while the
validity of the conjecture has been established for all graphs
with
, it remains open for larger values.