A vivid light yellow, black text passes AA
What color is gold?
The CSS named color gold is #ffd700, or rgb(255 215 0): a vivid light yellow in plain words. Black text on it reaches 14.97:1, passing WCAG AAA, and Recolor (recolor.page) can put it on a real page.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | gold |
| Hex | #ffd700 |
| RGB | rgb(255 215 0) |
| HSL | hsl(51 100% 50%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(88.7% 0.182 95.3) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | yellow-300 #ffdf20, 0.019 away in OKLab |
| White text | 1.40:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text fails |
| Black text | 14.97:1: AA passes, AAA passes, large text passes |
About gold
In OKLCH terms gold has a lightness of 88.7%, a chroma of 0.182 and a hue of 95.3 degrees, a vivid light yellow to the eye.
Its HSL lightness, 50%, says little about how light gold looks; OKLCH, made to match the eye, measures 88.7%, 39 points away. No CSS keyword matches it; khaki (#f0e68c) is the nearest, 0.077 away in OKLab, a clear step off.
For text, gold wants black: 14.97:1 clears even AAA's 7:1, and white at 1.40:1 fails AA. Its neighbors in the hue-sorted list of names are khaki and darkkhaki.
The closest Tailwind 4.3.3 color is yellow-300, 0.019 away in OKLab, so bg-yellow-300 comes very close; bg-[#ffd700] gives the color itself.
Tints and shades
- #fff9e2
- #fff3c5
- #ffeda6
- #ffe684
- #ffdf5b
- #ffd700
- #c8a800
- #947c00
- #635200
- #362c00
- #0f0a00
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
- #ffd700
- #b07a84
- #0d1b2b
- #d5cc98
- #585376
Locked as the first of five swatches, gold gets #b07a84, #0d1b2b, #d5cc98, #585376 from Recolor's generator, a free palette, hues spread around the wheel. The seed is its hex, so the palette stays the same. Open it in Recolor.
Using gold
As a text color, gold on a black page gives the same 14.97:1.
.notice {
background-color: gold; /* #ffd700 */
color: black; /* 14.97:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on gold?
No. White text measures 1.40:1 on gold, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 14.97:1 and passes.
Can gold be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(88.7% 0.182 95.3), computed from #ffd700. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to gold?
No. The nearest, khaki (#f0e68c), is 0.077 away in OKLab, a different color.