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True Bahamas

#2e97d7
Notes

True Bahamas (#2E97D7) is a true azure with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (203°, 68%, 51%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#2e97d7
RGB
rgb(46, 151, 215)
HSL
hsl(203, 68%, 51%)
HWB
hwb(203 18% 16%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.7% 0.133 240.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3083 0.5839 0.8219)
HSV
hsv(203, 79%, 84%)
LAB
lab(59.54% -7.60 -40.98)
LCH
lch(59.54% 41.68 259.49)
CMYK
cmyk(79%, 30%, 0%, 16%)

Etymology

True
adjective

Old English trēowe, faithful — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as the canonical version of their family. True red, true blue: the saturation is full, the hue is neither shifted nor adulterated. Sits at the center of the bold and crisp buckets, marking the unequivocal middle of any chromatic family.

Bahamas
noun

The Atlantic archipelago — and the saturated turquoise of Bahamian Pink Sands Beach shallows at Harbour Island and the cyan-blue of Exuma Cays lagoon water. Bahamas color refers to a Bahamian shallow-water lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly cool bright blue-green with the optical clarity of warm Caribbean water.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#2e97d7
Original
#7998da
Protanopia
#6288d6
Deuteranopia
#00a7ae
Tritanopia
#858585
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon White
3.22:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
6.52:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##2E97D7
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3083 0.5839 0.8219)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.133

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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