Yellow is one of the most familiar names known to a large segment of general public besides white "colourless" diamonds. Canary is another name widely used in place of intense yellow diamonds.

Fancy yellow diamonds have four colour grades (Fancy Light Yellow, Fancy Yellow, Fancy Intense Yellow and Fancy Vivid Yellow) with increasing prices with the higher intensity colours. Some of the yellows with higher intensity of colour (Fancy Vivid Yellows) are as rare as the pinks and blues and command unusually high prices.

Although faint yellow in white diamonds is not desirable, fancy intense yellow is sought after. Although India produced some yellows in the 16th and 17th centuries, South Africa today is the main producer of these gems. As a matter of fact, the first authenticated diamond found in South Africa was the 10.73 yellow Eureka. By 1900, South Africa had produced the 128.51 Tiffany, the 130 carat Colenso, the 228.50 DeBeers,and the 205.07 Red Cross. In 1996 at Christie's, a 8.45 fancy vivid yellow sold for $684,500 or $81,000 per carat.

Today, you can buy yellows in various shades from lemon yellow to taxicab yellow. The best pure yellow or orangish yellow will be called "fancy intense" or "fancy vivid" yellow on the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) grading report. These diamonds are rare and expensive. Slightly below these stones are the fancy yellows. These stones are more affordable but still quite yellow.

Common names for yellow diamonds include canary, cape, daffodil, lemon, autumn, golden, manila, chartreuse, saffron etc. The yellow diamond rough is mined in South Africa, Brazil, Russia and India.

Nitrogen in abundance is a major cause of yellow in diamonds. It occurs in higher concentration than any other element. The secondary hues and colour modifiers for yellow diamonds include orange, green, brown, gray and olive.

The colour of enhanced yellow diamonds closely resembles the natural yellow and is not easy to detect by eye. They need to be analyzed using infrared spectrosco