Colour and emotion
The colours of hope
Green is the colour of hope in Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese and across the Muslim world. Elsewhere hope is light, dawn or a rainbow.
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Hope is green in much of Europe and across the Muslim world, the colour of new shoots after winter. Speakers of Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese all say so in set phrases. Many other languages picture hope as light instead: a ray, a dawn, a lamp. Yellow ribbons, rainbows and white doves carry it too. Research on colour seldom asks about hope, so this pairing rests on custom, faith and poetry more than on experiments.
What studies find
Hope is rarely on the list of emotions that colour researchers test. Where it does appear, the 2025 review by Jonauskaite and Mohr found it linked most often to white and to light colours in general. That fits the wider and firmer finding that light colours go with positive feelings and dark colours with negative ones. There is no experimental support for the idea that green surroundings make people more hopeful. The green of hope is better explained by farming and seasons. For most of history, green fields after rain or snow meant food to come, and languages and religions built on that plain fact.
In language
Spanish speakers say green is the colour of hope (verde esperanza), and so do Italians (verde speranza), Portuguese speakers and Germans (Grün ist die Hoffnung). English has 'green shoots' for the first signs of recovery and a 'silver lining' in every cloud. Many languages make hope a light. Hindi and Urdu have 'ummeed ki kiran', a ray of hope. Chinese uses shuguang, the first light of dawn, and Japanese speaks of a light of hope, kibou no hikari. English has light at the end of the tunnel. Green and light are the two great images, and they often appear together in spring festivals.
Around the world
In Christian tradition the three virtues have colours: white for faith, green for hope and red for charity. Dante dresses Beatrice in all three in the Divine Comedy. For Nowruz, the spring new year kept in Iran, Central Asia and beyond, families sprout a dish of green wheat or lentils called sabzeh as a sign of renewal. At Diwali in India, rows of lamps mark the victory of light over darkness. In the Philippines yellow became the colour of the 1986 People Power movement. In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu's phrase 'rainbow nation' gave the hope of the 1990s its image.
Where it is used
Charities, health campaigns and political movements choose hopeful colours with care. Green is used by environmental parties worldwide and by many Muslim organisations. Yellow ribbons, tied in the United States during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981 and since used in many countries, ask for someone's safe return. Children's rainbow drawings in windows became a sign of hope during the Covid-19 pandemic in several countries. Film makers end dark stories by letting warm light or green landscape into the frame. In each case the colour works because the audience already knows the code. It signals hope. It does not produce it.
Hope in colour, place by place
For Nowruz, the spring new year, families grow a dish of green sprouts called sabzeh as a sign of renewal and set it on the festive table.
Green is the colour of hope in set phrases: verde esperanza, verde speranza, Grün ist die Hoffnung.
In Dante's Divine Comedy, Beatrice appears in a white veil, green cloak and red dress: the colours of faith, hope and charity.
Yellow ribbons were tied to trees during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981 as a sign of hope for the captives' safe return.
Yellow was the colour of the 1986 People Power movement and of Corazon Aquino's campaign, worn and waved by huge crowds in Manila.
Desmond Tutu called post-apartheid South Africa the 'rainbow nation', and the many-coloured flag adopted in 1994 became a sign of shared hope.
At Diwali, homes are lit with rows of small oil lamps, diyas, marking the victory of light over darkness and hope for the year ahead.
From the table of meanings
The blue band of the flag stands for the wish of the Armenian people to live under peaceful skies. The red above it is for the highlands and the struggle to survive.
Politics and protestHopeSource: Flag of ArmeniaA green kerchief is the sign of the campaign for legal abortion. Huge crowds wore it in 2018, and the movement was called the green wave.
Politics and protestHopeSource: Green scarfThe third day of the New Year's Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground is Jane McGrath Day. The crowd wears pink to raise money for breast cancer nurses.
Protection and healingHopeSource: McGrath FoundationThe green field of the flag stands for the land and its rice fields. Many people also read it as the youth and vigour of the country.
Nature and renewalPolitics and protestHopeSource: Flag of BangladeshOn 1 March people give each other martenitsi, small tassels or dolls of red and white thread. They are worn until the first stork or blossoming tree is seen.
Protection and healingLuck and prosperityHopeSource: MartenitsaOn New Year's Eve crowds on the beaches dress in white for peace in the year ahead. The custom comes from the Afro-Brazilian religions, whose followers wear white.
Luck and prosperityFestival and celebrationSacred and holyHopeSource: New Year's EveThe light blue of the flag stands for rain. In this dry country the word pula means rain, blessing and the national currency.
Nature and renewalLuck and prosperityHopeSource: Flag of BotswanaThe flag's designers avoided blue and red, the colours of Greece and Turkey. The white field and two olive branches stand for peace between the island's communities.
Politics and protestHopeSource: Flag of CyprusThe flag is blue, black and white. Blue is for the sky, lakes and sea, black for the soil and the dark past, and white for snow, birch bark and hope.
Politics and protestNature and renewalHopeSource: Flag of EstoniaIn ancient Egypt green meant new growth and life after death. Osiris, god of the dead and of rebirth, was painted with green skin.
Nature and renewalSacred and holyHopeSource: OsirisThe old name of the country, Kemet, means the black land, after the dark silt left by the Nile flood. To the ancient Egyptians black was the colour of fertile soil and new life.
Nature and renewalHopeSource: BlackYellow daisies called adey abeba cover the highlands at the end of the rains in September. Children give bunches of them at Enkutatash, the New Year.
Festival and celebrationNature and renewalHopeJoySource: Bidens macropteraThe yellow band of the flag stands for peace and hope. The three colours have flown together since the 1890s, in the reign of Menelik II.
Politics and protestHopeSource: Flag of EthiopiaThe green band at the top of the flag stands for the land and its fertility. Green, yellow and red are also the colours of sashes and umbrellas at Orthodox church festivals.
Nature and renewalPolitics and protestHopeSource: Flag of EthiopiaColours that carry hope
Sources and further reading
- Hope on Wikipedia
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Project Gutenberg
- UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Nowruz
- Jonauskaite and Mohr, Do we feel colours? A systematic review of 128 years of research (Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2025)
Original text by the Rang desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Meanings of colour vary from place to place and person to person. If we have something wrong, tell us.