There are provided an image coding method and apparatus and image compression method and apparatus which can properly compress a color document image with a high compression efficiency. First of all, a color reduction processing unit (102) converts each pixel of a color document image into an index assigned in correspondence with a color value, and generates color information (103) containing the number of pixels for each indexed color and an index color image (104). A color information sort unit (105) and the like determine, for example, a color value corresponding to an index of the maximum number of pixels as a background color. An order determination unit (113) determines an order. A binary image generation compression unit (109) generates a partial binary image for each index and compresses the binary image according to the order. A data integrating unit (111) generates compressed image (112) by integrating background data (108) and the compressed data of the partial binary image.