Abstract Coal is a heterogeneous substance and its heterogeneity is identified and characterized by variation in reflectance. The main objective of this paper is to characterize the heterogeneity of char and to correlate it with the coal reflectogram, which accounts for both rank and maceral composition effects. Chars from two density fractions in a set of coals were obtained in a Drop Tube Furnace (DTF) at 1400 °C in N 2 environment. The chars were examined under a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the morphology information was obtained from the image-processing technique. The average porosity of char changes systematically with the FMR of its parent coals (defined as the summation of each reflectance multiplied with its frequency). The char porosity increased with an increase in FMR up to a critical value around 98. With further increase in FMR, the corresponding char becomes dense. The char macro porosity distribution was found to be related to the coal reflectogram. In general, the char porosity distribution shows two peaks, which corresponds to the inertinite and vitrinite peaks in reflectogram. The intensity depends on the maceral content. The relationship between the char porosity and coal reflectance for this set of sample has been found, which is strongly dependent on the coal rank. However, these findings cannot be applied to coals with a strong maceral association (microlithotype).