The colors of the rainbow, in order from the outside edge to the inside, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. That's seven colors. The red band is always on the top outer edge of a normal rainbow, and violet is on the bottom inner edge.
Below you'll find an easy way to remember the order, a short explanation of why rainbows appear, and step-by-step tips for coloring a rainbow that looks smooth and bright.
| Position | Color | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (outer edge) | Red | The widest band at the top |
| 2 | Orange | Between red and yellow |
| 3 | Yellow | Often the brightest band |
| 4 | Green | The middle of the rainbow |
| 5 | Blue | Between green and indigo |
| 6 | Indigo | A deep blue leaning toward purple |
| 7 (inner edge) | Violet | A soft purple at the bottom |
If you're coloring a rainbow, start at the top with red and work down. If you're looking at a real rainbow from the ground, red is always on the outside of the arch, farthest from the center.
Many people use the first letters of the colors: R-O-Y-G-B-I-V. You can say it as one word ("roy-gee-biv"), or make up a silly sentence where each word starts with the same letters:
Writing your own sentence is the best trick, because you'll remember it longer. Kids like to make theirs funny.
Another way to remember: the colors go in the same order as the primary and secondary colors on a color wheel, just stretched into a line. Red, then orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then a blue-purple, then purple. If you know the color wheel, you already know the order.
A rainbow is really a smooth blend from red to violet, with no hard lines. The number seven is a choice of how to divide it. A famous scientist who studied light in the 1600s chose seven names, partly because seven felt like a tidy number. Many people today can only pick out six, because indigo is hard to tell apart from blue and violet. Some people count five or six colors, and you'll see that in different books and cultures. Seven is the one most schools teach, so it's the one to know for tests.
Here's the short, accurate version:
For you to see a rainbow, the sun needs to be behind you and the rain in front of you. That is why rainbows often appear in the afternoon or morning when the sun is low, with a passing shower ahead.
Sometimes there's a second, fainter rainbow outside the first. In that one, the order is reversed: violet on the outside and red on the inside.
A rainbow looks great on a coloring page, and it's simple to get right.
Lightly mark each band with the first letter of its color, or just remember to go red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet from the top down. Use light pressure at first so you can fix mistakes.
Keep each band about the same width. If your page has curved lines, color along the curve, not across it. Moving your pencil in the same direction as the band makes the color look smoother.
Real rainbows have no hard lines between colors. To copy that:
The overlaps will naturally make the in-between colors: yellow and red overlap into orange, yellow and blue into green. Our guide to how to color with colored pencils shows the layering step by step.
Light blue for the sky and white for the clouds help the rainbow stand out. You can leave the clouds uncolored paper-white, or lightly shade the bottom of each cloud in gray or pale blue.
Many crayon and pencil sets skip indigo. You can make it by layering a dark blue and a little purple. Or use blue then violet and let the overlap do the work.
What is the first color of the rainbow? Red.
What is the last color? Violet.
Are black and white colors of the rainbow? No. White is all the colors of light together, and black is the absence of light. Neither shows up as a band.
Is pink in the rainbow? Not as its own band. Pink is a lighter red, and you can get a pinkish look where red fades out.
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