A liquid crystal display device for color display comprising a transmission-type liquid crystal panel, capable of controlling an amount of transmission light, and a backlight disposed behind the liquid crystal panel capable of emitting three colors of light separately in a time-dividing manner, in which three data corresponding to the three colors of the backlight are displayed sequentially to thereby make the backlight emit a corresponding color in a period corresponding to data to be displayed. The switching can be performed manually or in response to outside signal, between a sequence in which the backlight emits three colors separately one time in one display period to perform color display, and a sequence in which the backlight emits three colors simultaneously three times to perform black-and-white display. The backlight emission can be switched, depending on the intensity of ambient light, thereby allowing switching between color display with low intensity and black-and-white display with high intensity.