BUILT IN SAN FRANCISCO + HANGZHOU
About Chinese Color Atlas
A source-aware color archive for designers, grounded in clear reliability tiers and Chinese cultural narrative.
Core principle
Chinese Color Atlas aims to be source-aware design infrastructure for Chinese traditional colors. Beyond browsing swatches, we focus on data credibility, cultural depth, and design-workflow integration. Each color carries a reliability tier that separates measured values, classical name attestations, modern attributed entries, and disputed records.
About Chroma Cathay
Chroma Cathay is the color research and design-tools studio under TOTM Tech. Chinese Color Atlas is Chroma Cathay's flagship project, turning Chinese traditional color research into practical products and data infrastructure for designers, developers, and researchers.
Publisher: Chroma Cathay · Parent organization: TOTM Tech · Product: Chinese Color Atlas
Data sources
zerosoul/chinese-colors
MIT license · 161 colors · names, pinyin, and family groupings
daodaolee/china-color
Based on Chinese Traditional Colors: Aesthetics from the Forbidden City · 384 colors · poetry & solar-term mapping
Tiangong Kaiwu — Zhangshi (1637)
Song Yingxing (Ming Dynasty) · public domain · 24 dye recipes
★ The Qianlong Palette
42 colors + 9 natural-dye recipes · CIE L*a*b* scientifically measured · reconstructed by Liu Jian and Wang Yehong's team at the China National Silk Museum from Imperial Household Department dye-bureau ledgers (Qianlong reign, 1736–1795).
Paper: Su Miao et al. Color Characteristics of the Qianlong Palette via Colorimetric Measurement. Journal of Textile Research, 2023, 44(03): 132–138.
DOI: 10.13475/j.fzxb.20211203107
Source book: Liu Jian, Wang Yehong. The Qianlong Palette: Research and Color Reconstruction of 17th–19th Century Textile Dyes. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2020. ISBN 9787308201322.
Reliability standards
Color name or color sense has source support; exact HEX values are treated as modern approximations unless a measured record is attached.
Modern compilation or design-use entry without direct primary-source attestation yet.
Public scholarly objection (e.g., Jia Xizeng et al.).
Stats
567
Total colors
24
Solar terms
223
Source-backed
42
Qianlong measured
Downloads · design assets
Public downloads are samples for testing CSS, Procreate, Figma, and AI prompt workflows. Complete 567-color bulk files are delivered through the resource packs.
Complete Design Pack
Includes ASE, Procreate swatches, Figma Variables, Tailwind, CSS, DTCG tokens, AI prompts, Qianlong, and Dunhuang resources.
Complete ASE, full Procreate .swatches, Figma Variables, AI prompts, and full JSON datasets belong to paid resource packs rather than direct public sample downloads.
Licensing
zerosoul/chinese-colors data is MIT-licensed and free to use.
daodaolee/china-color data has no stated license; cited here for attribution only.
Tiangong Kaiwu (1637) is public domain.
Hex values themselves are uncopyrightable. Artifact imagery uses MET Open Access (CC0) and Wikimedia Commons (Forbidden City holdings).
Chinese Color Atlas © MMXXVI