Aqua color: hex codes, shades and palettes
Palettes built around aqua. Click any swatch to copy its hex code.
Aqua is #00FFFF, vivid cyan. Below are its shades with hex codes, the values in every common format, and aqua color palettes to copy.
Aqua hex, RGB, HSL and OKLCH
- HEX
#00FFFF- RGB
rgb(0, 255, 255)- HSL
hsl(180, 100%, 50%)- OKLCH
oklch(90.5% 0.155 194.8)- On white
- 1.25:1
- On black
- 16.75:1
Shades of aqua
9 steps from one base color, generated in OKLCH so each step is an equal perceived step rather than an equal numeric one. Click a swatch to copy it.
Aqua color values
| RGB | 0 | 255 | 255 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSL | 180° | 100% | 50% | |
| HSV | 180° | 100% | 100% | |
| CMYK | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| XYZ | 53.8014 | 78.7327 | 106.9496 | |
| Yxy | 78.7327 | 0.2247 | 0.3288 | |
| CIE-Lab | 91.1132 | -48.0875 | -14.1312 | |
| Hunter Lab | 88.7315 | -47.0485 | -9.3513 | |
| OKLCH | 90.5% | 0.155 | 194.8° |
#00FFFF is 0 red, 255 green and 255 blue. No single channel dominates it. The nearest of the 216 web safe colors is #00FFFF.
CIE-Lab, XYZ and Yxy are measured against D65, the white point sRGB itself is defined against. Hunter Lab uses the original illuminant C constants, which is what paint and plastics specifications quote, so the two Lab rows are not directly comparable. CMYK is the plain arithmetic conversion: real ink values depend on the press, the paper and the profile.
| Base | Red | Green | Blue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binary | 00000000 | 11111111 | 11111111 |
| Octal | 0 | 377 | 377 |
| Decimal | 0 | 255 | 255 |
| Hex | 00 | FF | FF |
#00ffff mixed with black
Ten even steps of the classic shade ramp, worked out in RGB, which is how the term has always been defined and how other references list it. The OKLCH scale further down this page answers a different question: it steps by equal perceived amounts, so its values are not the same.
- #00FFFF
- #00E5E5
- #00CCCC
- #00B2B2
- #009999
- #007F7F
- #006666
- #004C4C
- #003232
- #001919
- #000000
#00ffff mixed with white
The tint ramp, by the same rule in the other direction.
- #00FFFF
- #19FFFF
- #33FFFF
- #4CFFFF
- #66FFFF
- #7FFFFF
- #99FFFF
- #B2FFFF
- #CCFFFF
- #E5FFFF
- #FFFFFF
Channel shares
Color schemes
Turned in OKLCH rather than HSL, so every member keeps the lightness and chroma of the original instead of one of them arriving washed out.
Complementary
- #00FFFF
- #FFD3D5
Triadic
- #00FFFF
- #F1D3FF
- #FFD9A6
Analogous
- #00FFFF
- #B4E9FF
- #6DFFC6
Monochromatic
- #008181
- #00A9A9
- #00D3D3
- #00FFFF
- #E3FFFE
- #E3FFFE
- #E3FFFE
#00ffff on black and on white
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 16.75:1
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 1.25:1
Body text needs 4.5:1 to meet AA and large text needs 3:1, so a ratio tells you which of the two backgrounds this color can be read on, and at what size.
CSS for #00ffff
color: #00ffff;
background-color: #00ffff;
border: 3px solid #00ffff;
box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px 2px #00ffff;
text-shadow: 4px 4px 2px rgba(0, 255, 255, 0.8);
/* Perceptually even, and what a modern stylesheet wants */
color: oklch(90.5% 0.155 194.8);The OKLCH form is the same color stated so that lightening or darkening it moves by an amount the eye agrees with. Every current browser understands it.
Contrast and readability
Aqua on white measures 1.25:1 and on black 16.75:1. WCAG AA asks for 4.5:1 on normal text and 3:1 on large text and UI components, so the higher of those two decides which background it belongs on. In the scale above, 500 is the first to clear 4.5:1 on white, at 5.03:1.
The contrast checker reports every level for a given pair and suggests the nearest passing shade on the same hue. The color picker builds this same scale from any color you paste in.
Related colors: teal, turquoise. See every shade on the colors index.
No aqua palettes yet
Run npm run generate to build the dataset.
