Purple, green and gold
New Orleans
A city of brightly painted cottages and iron balconies, dressed in purple, green and gold each carnival.
Why New Orleans is mardi gras purple
New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi, mixes French, Spanish, African and Caribbean influences. Its carnival, Mardi Gras, has three official colours: purple, green and gold. They were chosen in 1872 by Rex, one of the parade organisations, and later given the meanings justice, faith and power. In the weeks before Lent they appear on flags, beads, costumes and the sugar on king cakes. The city is colourful all year. Creole cottages and long narrow shotgun houses in districts such as the Marigny and Bywater are painted pink, turquoise, yellow and lilac, with contrasting shutters. In the French Quarter, stuccoed walls in ochre and rose stand behind balconies of black cast iron.
#5B2A86Mardi Gras green#1F8A4CMardi Gras gold#F2B705Creole cottage pink#E8A0A8Shutter green#2F5F4AValues are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to New Orleans
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "New Orleans" on Wikipedia. If you know New Orleans and we have it wrong, tell us.
More colour cities
All colour cities
🇺🇸 Red Rock CountrySedonaA small Arizona city ringed by towers and cliffs of red sandstone, with rules that keep buildings muted.
🇺🇸 The adobe citySanta FeNew Mexico's capital, where a city rule keeps buildings in earth-coloured adobe style with turquoise trim.
🇺🇸 Art Deco pastelsMiami BeachHundreds of 1930s hotels in pink, mint, aqua and peach line the streets behind the beach, with neon at night.
🇺🇸 Rainbow RowCharlestonThirteen Georgian merchants' houses in a row, each a different pastel, on the waterfront of a southern port.
🇺🇸 Painted Ladies and International OrangeSan FranciscoA red-orange bridge chosen to show through fog, and Victorian wooden houses painted in three or more colours.
🇺🇸 City of yellow cabsNew YorkYellow taxis thread streets of brown stone, grey steel and glass; a green statue stands in the harbour.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Sedona Us: Adam Baker, CC BY 2.0, source
- Santa Fe Us: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Miami Beach Us: Massimo Catarinella, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Charleston Us: Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- San Francisco Us: Lightandtruth, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- New York Us: Z22, CC BY-SA 3.0, source