---
name: Diverging palette
slug: diverging-palette
category: color
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: A data palette built from two sequential scales meeting at a neutral
  midpoint, used when values run above and below a meaningful zero.
aliases:
  - name: diverging scale
    source: community
  - name: bipolar palette
    source: community
  - name: red-white-blue scale
    source: community
tags:
  - dataviz
  - perception
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - categorical-palette
    - sequential-palette
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: Color palettes for data visualization
    url: https://colorarchive.org/guides/data-visualization-color-palettes/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: values that run above and below a midpoint
---

A diverging palette is two ramps glued together. Each arm runs from a pale neutral out to a
saturated dark end, one arm in each of two hues, and the join is placed on the value that
separates one kind of thing from the other: profit from loss, warmer than normal from
cooler, ahead of target from behind. Colourfulness and darkness both grow with distance
from that join, so the eye reads two things at once, which side a value is on and how far
out it went.

Everything depends on the midpoint being real. Zero is the obvious one, but an average, a
target, a forecast, or last year's number can all be genuine dividing lines. What breaks
the encoding is a midpoint chosen for the picture rather than for the data: slide the
neutral away from zero and every value between the old middle and the new one flips its
apparent sign, so a month that was above average is painted in the colour that says below.
Nothing about the chart announces this, which is why an off-centre diverging scale is one
of the quieter ways a chart can mislead. If the domain is lopsided, keep the neutral where
it belongs and let one arm be shorter, or clamp both arms to the same distance and say so.

Hue choice carries a load here too. The red and blue pairing is common because it maps onto
a cultural warm and cool split, but red and green is the pairing to avoid: it is the exact
axis most colour vision deficiency sits on, so the two arms collapse into one and the
midpoint becomes invisible. Purple with orange, or teal with brown, survive that and print
in greyscale as a light middle with dark ends, which is the shape the palette is supposed
to have.

When there is no meaningful middle, this is the wrong tool. Data that only runs one way
belongs on a sequential palette, where lightness carries the order and the darkest end is
simply the most. Groups with no order at all belong on a categorical palette, where the
whole point is that no colour reads as more than another.