Techniques for the automatic creation and maintenance of zone maps are provided. In one technique, a set of data sets is identified. For each data set, a data set width is determined based on a maximum value in the data set and a minimum value in the data set. One or more zones within the data set are identified. For each zone, a zone width is determined based on a difference between a maximum value in that zone and a minimum value in that zone. An aggregate zone width is generated that is based on the zone width of each zone. Based on the data set width and the aggregate zone width, it is determined whether to automatically generate a zone map for the data set.