Fewer than one in 10,000 diamonds comes out of the ground with real colour. Here's where the world's finest hues come from, and why they're so rare.
A diamond is made of pure carbon, colourless. Three different phenomena can give it colour: nitrogen produces yellow, boron produces blue. Pink is different, it comes from a distortion of the crystal structure under extreme pressure, deep within the Earth's mantle. This process cannot be replicated in a lab: every natural pink diamond is a unique geological accident.
Africa remains the source of the world's most sought-after Fancy Colors.
The Zimmi region, in Pujehun District, produces an exceptionally intense canary yellow, a Type Ib diamond, an uncommon classification. These stones often trade for two to three times the price of a classic yellow of the same intensity.
In 2022, the Lulo mine in Lunda Norte province produced the "Lulo Rose": a 170-carat rough pink diamond, the largest pink diamond found in around 300 years.
The Cullinan mine, near Pretoria, is the historic source of the world's largest blue diamonds. It produced the "Pink Star", sold for $71.2 million in 2017, the highest price ever paid for a gemstone at auction, as well as several record blues, including a 41.82-carat stone discovered in January 2026.
The "Pumpkin Diamond", 5.54 carats of exceptional vivid orange, was found here in 1997. It remains one of the benchmarks for fancy vivid orange.
The Argyle mine, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, alone produced around 90% of the world's pink diamonds between 1985 and its closure in November 2020, after 37 years of operation. Its geology was unique: a volcanic rock called lamproite, different from the kimberlite of other mines. Since its closure, no other mine produces pink diamonds as consistently, driving up the value of stones already in circulation.
Two examples are enough to understand the value of an exceptional Fancy Color.
59.60 carats, vivid pink, found in South Africa in 1999, cut over two years. Sold for $71.2 million in Hong Kong in 2017, the highest price ever paid for a gemstone at auction.
15.10 carats, vivid blue, mined at Cullinan and sold for $57.5 million in 2022, one of the most expensive blue diamonds ever sold at auction.
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