What color is the Eiffel Tower painted?

The Eiffel Tower is painted brown, today appearing in an official yellow-brown shade.

The color is not simply a single flat tone. The tower uses three graduated brown shades, darker near the base and lighter higher up, creating the visual impression of a consistent color against the Paris sky. The paint also protects its puddled wrought iron from corrosion.

Brown is a useful quiz answer, but the tower has not always looked the same. It was first coated in Venetian red during construction, then appeared reddish-brown in 1889 and ochre-brown in 1892. In 1899, painters applied five shades ranging from yellow-orange at the bottom to light yellow at the top.

The familiar “Eiffel Tower Brown” was introduced in 1968. A later restoration returned the monument to the historic yellow-brown shade selected by Gustave Eiffel in 1907.