A vivid medium teal, black text passes AA
What color is darkcyan?
darkcyan is a vivid medium teal: #008b8b in hex, rgb(0 139 139). Black text on it reaches 5.07:1, passing WCAG AA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | darkcyan |
| Hex | #008b8b |
| RGB | rgb(0 139 139) |
| HSL | hsl(180 100% 27%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(57.7% 0.098 194.8) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | teal-600 #009689, 0.035 away in OKLab |
| White text | 4.15:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text passes |
| Black text | 5.07:1: AA passes, AAA fails, large text passes |
About darkcyan
A vivid medium teal is the plain description of darkcyan: OKLCH lightness 57.7%, chroma 0.098, hue 194.8 degrees.
HSL puts its lightness at 27% and OKLCH at 57.7%, 30 points apart: HSL's lightness does not follow what the eye sees, OKLCH's is built to. The closest CSS named color is teal (#008080), 0.034 away in OKLab: near, and still a visible step from it side by side.
Black text on darkcyan reaches 5.07:1, enough for WCAG AA body text but short of AAA's 7:1; white text gets 4.15:1. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between cadetblue and teal.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is teal-600 (#009689), 0.035 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#008b8b] works.
Tints and shades
- #dcebeb
- #b9d8d7
- #96c4c4
- #71b1b0
- #499e9d
- #008b8b
- #006c6c
- #004e4e
- #003232
- #001919
- #000404
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #008b8b
- #f8dbff
- #30271d
- #b1d2d2
- #69517a
Recolor's generator, with darkcyan locked as swatch 1 and the seed taken from its hex, drew a triadic palette, three hues a third of the wheel apart: #f8dbff, #30271d, #b1d2d2, #69517a. Open it in Recolor.
Using darkcyan
As a text color, darkcyan on a black page gives the same 5.07:1.
.notice {
background-color: darkcyan; /* #008b8b */
color: black; /* 5.07:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on darkcyan?
No. White text measures 4.15:1 on darkcyan, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 5.07:1 and passes.
Can darkcyan be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(57.7% 0.098 194.8), computed from #008b8b. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to darkcyan?
Yes: teal (#008080) is the nearest, 0.034 away in OKLab, then seagreen at 0.077.