Cochineal red and green stone
Oaxaca
A city of green stone and painted walls in a region that gave the world a brilliant red dye from insects.
Why Oaxaca is cochineal red
Oaxaca de Juárez is the capital of a state in southern Mexico with many indigenous peoples, chiefly Zapotec and Mixtec. Its churches and public buildings are built of a pale green volcanic stone quarried nearby. House fronts along the straight streets are painted in flat blues, ochres, reds and pinks. The region's great gift to colour is cochineal, a small insect that lives on prickly pear cactus. Dried and crushed, it gives a strong crimson dye. After the Spanish conquest it became one of Mexico's most valuable exports. Weavers in the nearby town of Teotitlán del Valle still dye wool with it. In late October the city turns orange with marigolds for the Day of the Dead.
#B5183AGreen cantera stone#9EAF8AMarigold orange#F28C1EWall blue#2F6FC2Wall ochre#E0A83CValues are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Oaxaca
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Oaxaca City" on Wikipedia. If you know Oaxaca and we have it wrong, tell us.
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🇲🇽 The Yellow CityIzamalA town in Yucatán where the convent, the arcades and nearly every house are painted the same egg-yolk yellow.
🇲🇽 A ravine full of coloured housesGuanajuatoA silver-mining city wedged in a narrow valley, its hillsides stacked with houses of every colour.
🇲🇽 Ochre walls and a pink churchSan Miguel de AllendeA colonial hill town in central Mexico painted in reds, ochres and yellows, around a pink stone church.
🇲🇽 Walled city of pastel streetsCampecheA fortified port on the Gulf of Mexico with straight streets of low houses in pale, carefully kept colours.
🇲🇽 River port of bold arcadesTlacotalpanA quiet town on the Papaloapan river where every house has a columned porch in a different strong colour.
🇮🇳 The open-air gallery of RajasthanShekhawatiMerchant mansions in the towns of north Rajasthan are covered inside and out with painted murals.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Shekhawati In: Digrajsingh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Izamal Mx: Inri, CC0, source
- Guanajuato Mx: Nathaniel C. Sheetz, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- San Miguel De Allende Mx: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jiuguangw/, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Campeche Mx: self., CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Tlacotalpan Mx: panza.rayada, CC BY-SA 3.0, source