Imperial Egypt
Imperial Egypt (#B66B09) is a true orange with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (34°, 91%, 37%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
From the Latin imperialis, of the empire — applied to color since the medieval period for the hues reserved for sovereigns and empires: imperial purple of Tyrian dye, imperial yellow of Ming-dynasty porcelain. As a modifier, imperial implies saturation combined with the institutional weight of a color owned by a court. Sits in the bold-and-deep corner, alongside royal.
The civilization that established the Western world's earliest sustained color vocabulary — and the warm yellow-tan of Egyptian sandstone, the gold of Tutankhamun's death mask, and the ochre of pharaonic tomb painting. Egypt refers to the desert sand of the Theban necropolis at dawn: a saturated, slightly cool warm yellow-tan with the matte finish of windblown quartz.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.
Wide gamut
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.
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.