• 13 colors

Rainbow Color Wheel Spinner

Spin one of the seven rainbow colors and the card gives its place in the arc, its wavelength and a hex code.

Rainbow Color Wheel Spinner

Click the button or the wheel, or press Space or Enter. Press again to skip.Tap the button or the wheel. Tap again to skip.

RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIndigoViolet

Sample result

Blue

Color 5 of 7. About 450 to 485 nanometers. A primary color of light. The shade Newton called blue was closer to today's cyan. Hex #0000FF.

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        All 13 colors

        In-between hues 6

        • Azure Halfway between cyan and blue on the 12-hue color wheel. Hex #0080FF.
        • Chartreuse Halfway between yellow and green on the 12-hue color wheel. Hex #80FF00.
        • Cyan Green light plus blue light. Some modern lists of rainbow colors add cyan between green and blue and drop indigo. In the spectrum it is a thin band at about 485 to 500 nanometers. Hex #00FFFF.
        • Magenta Blue light plus red light. You will never see it in a rainbow: no single color of the spectrum has magenta's hue. Hex #FF00FF.
        • Rose Halfway between magenta and red on the 12-hue color wheel. Hex #FF0080.
        • Spring green Halfway between green and cyan on the 12-hue color wheel. Hex #00FF80.
        Show all 13 colors (7 more)

        Rainbow colors 7

        • Blue Color 5 of 7. About 450 to 485 nanometers. A primary color of light. The shade Newton called blue was closer to today's cyan. Hex #0000FF.
        • Green Color 4 of 7, the middle of the rainbow. About 500 to 565 nanometers. A primary color of light. Hex #00FF00.
        • Indigo Color 6 of 7, between blue and violet. Newton added it to bring the count to seven, and many modern lists skip it. Lists that keep it put it at about 420 to 450 nanometers. Hex #4000FF. The web color named indigo, #4B0082, is a darker purple and is not used here.
        • Orange Color 2 of 7, between red and yellow. Newton left it out at first and added it later. About 590 to 625 nanometers. Hex #FF8000.
        • Red Color 1 of 7. Red runs along the outside edge of a rainbow. Its light has the longest waves the eye can see, about 625 to 750 nanometers. A primary color of light. Hex #FF0000.
        • Violet Color 7 of 7. Violet runs along the inside edge of a rainbow. Its light has the shortest waves the eye can see, about 380 to 450 nanometers when indigo is counted as part of it. Hex #8000FF.
        • Yellow Color 3 of 7, the narrowest band of the seven at about 565 to 590 nanometers. On a screen, red light plus green light makes yellow. Hex #FFFF00.

        How this list was compiled: Thirteen colors in two groups, put together for this site on 2026-09-18. The seven rainbow colors and their order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) are Isaac Newton's sequence as given at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROYGBIV, checked 2026-09-18. The same Rainbow article is the source for red sitting on the outer edge of a primary rainbow and violet on the inner edge, for Newton starting in 1672 with five colors and later adding orange and indigo by analogy with the notes of a musical scale, for his 'blue' being closer to what is now called cyan, and for modern lists that use cyan. The six in-between hues are the ones needed to complete the 12-hue RGB color wheel: three primaries of light (red, green, blue), three secondaries (yellow, cyan, magenta) and six tertiaries (orange, chartreuse, spring green, azure, violet, rose). Those names, mixes and hex values were checked on 2026-09-18 against the tertiary color tables at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_color. That article flags the tertiary names as one naming scheme and not a standard, so the page calls them common names. Indigo is the one color here that is not among those 12 hues. Its swatch is #4000FF (hue 255), the color shown in the infobox at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo (re-read 2026-09-18), which sits between blue (hue 240) and violet (hue 270). The web color named indigo, #4B0082, is not used for the swatch: the same article calls it a dark purple whose hue is nearer violet than indigo dye, and its hue of 275 falls past violet. The wavelength ranges on the seven rainbow cards and the cyan card are the approximate ranges in the spectral color table at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum, checked 2026-09-18. That table leaves indigo out and gives violet 380 to 450 nanometers; the 420 to 450 range on the indigo card is the one the Indigo article gives for sources that keep it. The spectrum is continuous, so every range is a convention and the cards say 'about'. Magenta being an extra-spectral color comes from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta. Hex values are screen approximations for swatches; a rainbow is a continuous spectrum and has no exact hex codes. Licence: own work

        How it works

        This rainbow color wheel spinner opens on the seven colors of the rainbow, red through violet. Under Show only, All adds six in-between hues such as cyan and magenta. The slices are not painted in their own colors, so go by the name on the slice. The card gives each rainbow color's place in the arc, its wavelength and a hex code.

        Read the full guide

        The order, and which edge is red

        The order never changes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Red runs along the outside of the arc and violet along the inside. In a double rainbow the second arc is fainter and its colors run the other way. Two quick games: spin a color and name its two neighbors before anyone reads the card, or spin twice and say which color has the longer waves.

        Why indigo gets a slice

        A rainbow is one smooth band of light. The seven names come from Isaac Newton. In 1672 he split the spectrum into five colors: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he added orange and indigo to reach seven, matching the notes of a musical scale. Many modern lists drop indigo, and some add cyan. Indigo keeps its slice here by tradition.

        • Scavenger hunt: spin, then find something that color before the next spin.
        • Coloring a picture? Switch to Elimination. Each spin gives a color you have not used yet.
        • Need a subject? Spin the animal wheel and paint that animal in your color.

        Questions and answers

        What are the 7 colors of the rainbow in order?

        Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, which is Isaac Newton's sequence. Remember it with the name Roy G. Biv. Red has the longest waves and violet the shortest.

        Why is magenta on the wheel if it is not in a rainbow?

        The In-between hues group fills out the 12-hue color wheel used for screens: red, green and blue light, their mixes (yellow, cyan and magenta), and six halfway hues commonly called orange, chartreuse, spring green, azure, violet and rose. No single color of the spectrum has magenta's hue, so no rainbow shows it.

        Why is the indigo hex code not the web color indigo?

        The color that web pages call indigo, #4B0082, is a dark purple. Its hue falls past violet, so that swatch would put the rainbow out of order. This wheel uses #4000FF, which lies between blue and violet. No hex code is exact: a rainbow is a continuous band of light and a screen can only come close.

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