Rubik's Cube Colours: Which Colour Is Opposite Which?

How many colours does a Rubik's Cube have, and which is opposite which?

According to Wikipedia, the original Rubik's Cube has six faces, each one a single solid colour: white, red, blue, orange, green and yellow. Since 1988, the colours have been arranged like this (Wikipedia):

Memory tip: each opposite pair is a darker and a lighter colour from the same "family". White and yellow are the two brightest colours. Red and orange are close to each other. Blue and green are close too (in Vietnamese they even share one name, "xanh").

Before that year, Wikipedia says the colour positions on early cubes changed from cube to cube. Today almost every cube you buy follows the standard scheme above.

The standard colour scheme (Western, BOY)

Knowing the three opposite pairs is not quite enough. You also need to know which direction the colours go around the cube. For example, with white on top and green at the front, is red on the right or on the left?

With the standard scheme, the answer is on the right. Speedsolving Wiki describes this scheme as: white top, yellow bottom, green front, blue back, red right, orange left. The page calls it the Western colour scheme, also known as BOY, and says it is the scheme most cubers use (Speedsolving Wiki).

!Flat net of the six faces of a Rubik's Cube in the Western colour scheme Image: [Thomas 003 / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Western_color_scheme_of_a_Rubik%27s_Cube.svg), CC BY-SA 3.0

The BOY memory trick

BOY is the first letters of Blue, Orange, Yellow. Look straight at the corner with these three colours and you will see them in the order blue, orange, yellow going clockwise.

The picture below holds the cube with the yellow face on top, the orange face at the front and the blue face on the right, so the blue-orange-yellow corner sits in the corner closest to you. On the left, that corner has been moved somewhere else. On the right, it is back in place after R U R' U':

1. You start with (input)
3. After the formula

Go clockwise around the corner in the right-hand picture: yellow on the top face, across to blue on the right face, down to orange on the front face. Start from blue and you get exactly blue, orange, yellow.

Wikipedia describes the same scheme using a different corner: red, white and blue going clockwise (Wikipedia). You only need to remember one of the two to rebuild the whole cube in your head.

Why the colours on a cube never change places

The piece in the middle of each face is called the centre. When you turn the faces of a 3x3, the six centres only spin in place. They never swap places with each other. Wikipedia puts it clearly: the positions of the colours on a solved cube compared to each other are fixed by the positions of the centres, so no way of turning the cube can change the colour scheme (Wikipedia).

The picture below colours only the six centres. Do R U R' U': the other pieces move all over the place, but the centres stay exactly where they were.

This has a very handy result: the colour of the centre tells you the colour of the whole face. The face with the red centre is the red face, even if it has no other red stickers on it yet.

Using the colour scheme to find where each piece goes

Every piece that is not a centre has two colours (an edge) or three colours (a corner). Each piece has only one correct spot: between the centres that match its colours.

Edges: between two matching centres

The white-red edge belongs between the white centre and the red centre. In the picture below (white on top, green at the front), it is in the middle layer, at the front right. One R move takes it up to its spot, between the white top face and the red right face:

1. You start with (input)
3. After the formula

Corners: between three matching centres

The white-green-red corner belongs in the corner between the white, green and red centres. In the picture below, it is on the bottom layer, right underneath its correct spot. The sequence U R U' R' brings it up:

1. You start with (input)
3. After the formula

Pieces that cannot exist

Because white is opposite yellow, these two colours are never next to each other. So on a correct standard cube:

• There is no white-yellow, red-orange or blue-green edge.
• There is no corner with both colours of an opposite pair.

This tip saves you from hunting for a piece that does not exist. For example, for the white cross step you need exactly four edges with white on them: white-red, white-orange, white-blue and white-green.

Holding the cube the right way: white on top, green at the front

When you read an algorithm or notation, you need to know which face is the front. In competitions, the WCA rules say NxN cubes are scrambled while held with the white face on top and the green face next to it as the front (Regulation 4d1, version of 1 April 2026) (WCA Regulations). If a cube has no white, the rules use the lightest face instead of white and the darkest face next to it instead of green.

The pictures on EasyRubic hold the cube the same way: white on top, green at the front, so red is on the right. If you hold your cube like this and see red on the left, your cube does not use the standard colour scheme (see the end of this post).

To see what each letter such as R, U and F means, check out Rubik's Cube notation for beginners. To scramble a cube the way it is done at competitions, see how to scramble a Rubik's Cube the WCA way.

How does the colour scheme help with the layer-by-layer method?

The beginner method starts with the white face. Once the white face is done, you already know that the yellow face on the opposite side is the last one to solve. That is why EasyRubic's beginner guide solves the white cross on top first, then flips the cube over so the yellow face is on top.

When you make the white cross, each white edge has to match the centre on its side face: white-red matches the red centre, white-green matches the green centre. Looking down at the white face from above, the side faces go clockwise green, orange, blue, red. Remembering this order helps you put all four edges in the right place from the start, instead of fixing them later. All the steps are in how to solve a 3x3 Rubik's Cube for beginners.

Experienced cubers sometimes practise starting from any colour (being colour neutral). Then the colour scheme matters even more, because you need to know the order of the colours around every face. See also X-cross.

2x2 and 4x4 cubes: no fixed centres

The colour scheme matters most on cubes that do not have fixed centres.

• The 2x2 has no centres at all. You have to work out which colour goes where from the corners, and the answer is the standard colour scheme. For example, if one face is all white, the opposite face is definitely yellow. See how to solve a 2x2 Rubik's Cube for beginners.
• The 4x4 has four centre pieces on each face, and they can move. When you build the centres, if you put the red and orange centres next to each other instead of opposite each other, you will get stuck at a later step. Remember the three opposite pairs and the BOY order before you build the centres. See how to solve a 4x4 Rubik's Cube for beginners.

The Japanese colour scheme and other schemes

Not every cube uses the Western scheme.

• The Japanese colour scheme. Wikipedia describes it as the scheme where blue and yellow swap places compared to the Western scheme (Wikipedia). That means white is opposite blue, yellow is opposite green, and red is still opposite orange. Speedsolving Wiki says many Japanese cubers use this scheme, and they often start with a blue cross (Speedsolving Wiki).
• Mirror schemes. There are also mirrored versions of the schemes: the same opposite pairs, but the colours go the other way around the cube. The Speedsolving Wiki page on the Japanese scheme mentions that some cubers in Asia use a mirrored version of the Japanese scheme.
• Custom schemes. On stickered cubes, many people pick their own shade for each colour, but still keep the Western or Japanese layout (Speedsolving Wiki).

!Flat net of the six faces of a Rubik's Cube in the Japanese colour scheme Image: [Thomas 003 / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_color_scheme_of_a_Rubik%27s_Cube.svg), Public domain

Whatever colour scheme your cube has, the way you solve it is the same. The only difference is that the pictures and guides on EasyRubic use the Western scheme, so with a cube in a different scheme you need to "translate" the colours yourself when you compare it with the pictures.

What do the competition rules say about colours?

The WCA rules do not require any particular colour scheme. Article 3 (version of 1 April 2026) requires each face of a solved puzzle to have its own colour, with the colour the same across the whole face and different enough from the others to tell apart easily (Regulations 3a3, 3d2) (WCA Regulations). To see what a competition is like, see WCA Rubik's Cube competitions.

Check your cube in 30 seconds

With a new cube, or one you have just re-stickered, run through these three quick steps:

1. Find the three opposite pairs. Look at the centres of the top and bottom faces, then the two pairs of side faces. If they are white-yellow, red-orange and blue-green, the cube uses the Western scheme or its mirror version.
2. Hold it with white on top and green at the front. Red on the right means the standard scheme. Red on the left means the mirror version.
3. Look for odd pieces. If an edge or a corner has two opposite colours, or two pieces are exactly the same, the cube has the wrong stickers or pieces mixed in from another cube. A cube like that cannot be solved. See unsolvable Rubik's Cube.

Another common problem is not in the cube but in your eyes: mixing up red and orange when the light is poor. Solve somewhere with good light, and if you always find these two colours hard to tell apart, think about getting a cube with brighter colours. Stickerless or stickered Rubik's Cube has more tips on choosing colours.

Sources

• Rubik's Cube – Wikipedia
• WCA Regulations (Article 3: Puzzles, Article 4: Scrambling) – World Cube Association
• Color scheme – Speedsolving.com Wiki
• Japanese Color Scheme – Speedsolving.com Wiki