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Sanitary Bavaria

#a9a638
Notes

Sanitary Bavaria (#A9A638) is a true yellow with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (58°, 50%, 44%) 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 blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#a9a638
RGB
rgb(169, 166, 56)
HSL
hsl(58, 50%, 44%)
HWB
hwb(58 22% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(70.7% 0.130 107.8)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6607 0.6514 0.2942)
HSV
hsv(58, 67%, 66%)
LAB
lab(66.52% -12.56 54.92)
LCH
lch(66.52% 56.34 102.88)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 2%, 67%, 34%)

Etymology

Sanitary
adjective

Latin sānitās, health — adjectival suffix -ary. As a color modifier, sanitary implies a clear-and-clean-and-medical quality, the crisp color of Bauhaus-and-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture white-tile-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to hygienic and sterile in usage.

Bavaria
noun

The southern German region — and the diamond-pattern blue-and-white Bavarian state flag. Bavaria as a color refers specifically to the warm gold-yellow of Bavarian baroque church facades and the Lederhosen leather of traditional Bavarian dress. A saturated, slightly muted gold-yellow with the matte finish of weathered ochre lime-wash.

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.

#a9a638
Original
#b4a029
Protanopia
#b5a43f
Deuteranopia
#b59b90
Tritanopia
#9f9f9f
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).
Failon White
2.56:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
8.20:1

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
##A9A638
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6607 0.6514 0.2942)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.130

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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