What color is sand?

Sand is not a single color but comes in a wide range of colors depending on its mineral composition and location, although the most commonly imagined sand color is a light beige or pale yellow. The typical beach sand color people think of is often called sand color, sandy beige, or desert sand, which is a warm light tan with hex code around #C2B280. However, sand can be white, as in the pure quartz sand of the Bahamas and Florida, which is almost snow white, or black, as in volcanic sand in Hawaii and Iceland made from basalt. It can be pink, as in Bermuda's famous pink sand made from crushed coral and foraminifera, green as in Papakolea Beach in Hawaii made from olivine crystals, red as in desert sandstone regions, golden yellow as in many deserts, gray as in many river sands, and even purple in some rare locations. In geology, sand color indicates composition: quartz is light, iron oxide creates red, and volcanic minerals create black. So while the default crayon color called sand is a light tan beige, real sand in nature can be almost any color including white, black, pink, green, and brown.