Blonde Map of Europe
Sunday, January 6th, 2008.
Interesting map of Europe, colorized by the percentage of blondies of the nation (darkest areas mean 1 – 19% percent of people are blonde). Conclusion: like blonde girls? Go North. Click to start reading. Update: The original link is from Eupedia, we have updated the link. The map is also updated too, so, thank you Eupedia for your hints. -Vlad-
@ haha.nu.
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(32 votes, average: 4.34 out of 5). 
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January 7th, 2008 18:26
Are we talking natural blondes though? I don’t think there’s as many as 50-79% natural blondes in central Scotland. Most people I know have brown hair. Now bleached blonde with orange fake tanned skin, maybe…
*waves her natural blonde hair proudly*
January 7th, 2008 22:03
i Agree with jennifer as i also live in central scotland and mist the girls around here are only “bottle” blond….and we all know sewden was hott
January 7th, 2008 22:42
Interesting that all the locations with high percentage of blondes also had the most trouble with Viking invasions in their history. Perhaps they were doing more than stealing on their expeditions?
January 7th, 2008 23:18
What’s blonde anyway?
Back home in Iceland, I’m not considered anywhere near blonde. Here in Italy, though, I definitely am.
January 8th, 2008 01:12
I think it means ‘light’ hair. Blonde must mean not Mediterranean dark.
January 8th, 2008 02:26
There’s no place on earth where 80% of the population is blond, not even in Scandinavia – and the amount of blondes should be around the same in whole scandinavia not just in Finland and cenrtal Sweden.
Actually I’ve read, contrary to the common believe – that Norway and Denmark have a SLIGHT higher percentage of blondes than Sweden, due the the contact Sweden and Finland have had with Slavic culture from the east. ( not going racial or anything here )
Anyways, according to the reports I’ve read even the category of 50-79% is over the top.
I think Northern Europe in general is arouund the third category e.i 20-49%.
The demographic studies that I talk about “could” be obsolete, but I would still say that
the first catgory of 80+ percentage of blondes is very “unfactual”
January 8th, 2008 04:28
anyone remember the scene from “True Romance?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Romance#The_Sicilian_scene
January 10th, 2008 22:09
This map is old already.
I have seen it before and it is not true now, because people in Europe move in space very fast.
People in Europe tend to have a vocation twice a year, which is some sort not represented in the map.
January 17th, 2008 12:45
Ulmet-> vikings originated from a bit southern regions, so this is not the only reason.
Moi-> There are only 3 groups of nations, that today still claims that traits with blond hair and blue eye color are theirs – germans, balts and slavs. And all these three groups have the most similarities among indo-european.
Btw, ancient greeks – the ones, that come as indo-europeans also were blondes with blue eyes…
March 19th, 2008 03:01
Well, as a dark haired person with “dark” skin (I am still white though! Tanned, have you seen 300?) and brown eyes I must say that if by blond, we take hair that has yellowish shades, I may agree with the map. I’d say that some 10% of the people down here are “blond” in the sense that their hair is “yelowish or golden”. In an all American/Scandinavian way of blond, no more than 2% in the centre or 5% in the Northwest.
April 22nd, 2008 09:27
The Alentejo region in Portugal extending from Tejo (Tagus) River southwards (area about the size of Holland) has a lot more blonde haired people, in percent wise, than the map here represents. It should fit into the 20 to 49% category. I recently did my own little survey (by eye) in my girlfriends hometown and there are definately more light haired people in the region. Even the “All American/Scandinavian way of blonde”, as used by the person above, was common amongst the blondes i observed.
After living in Portugal for 5 years I can confidently say that the generalization of “the typical portuguese” does not exist. The generalization is based on a lack of sufficient travelling around the country to those who have visited and a strong similarity between those (portuguese) who have immigrated (largely due to the immigrants from concentrated areas choosing same countries of destination).
April 22nd, 2008 09:33
Portugal´s population is very often overly classified as “mediterranean”, when it is actually quite apparent to knowledgable observers that the population has a much sronger celtic stock amongst it… The percentage shown in Galicia should also be the percentage for most of the interior of Portugal.
July 5th, 2008 01:37
Interesting,
many people say that R1a1 (YDNA) is about dark people, but isn’t it?
World R1a1
R1a_sequence_distribution.pdf
I’ve also find very interesting research. But they are more about genetics.
The yellow area perfect fit the map (about blond people showed above) corridor for Finland Ostrobothnia (is yellowed) and the most frequency occurrence of R1a1 in Finland (SSO (Swedish speaking Ostrobothnia) r1a1 – 12%, SO (Southern Ostrobothnia) r1a1 – 19%) of course not dominated.
Link: http://vetinari.sitesled.com/finns.pdf
I’m also was curious about Norwegian R1a1 and I have tried to find same news, that hasn’t been mentioned yet, but still could be interesting enough at least for a mentioning.
When I saw
http://www.geocities.com/grpadm/Dupuy_2005_Geographical_heterogeneity_of_Y_chromosomal_lineages_in_Norway_FSI.pdf
Obviously R1a1 is highest in around Trotheim’s area. (Central Norway) I focused my interest on the language (dialect of Trotheim’s area), its accent and specialties and so on…
I’ve found on wikipedia’s web side this:
Tr?ndersk is the Norwegian dialect spoken in the region Tr?ndelag in Norway. The dialect is among other things perhaps mostly characterized by the use of apocope, palatalization and the use of retroflex flaps (thick L). Historically it also applied to contiguous regions of Jämtland and Härjedalen (interestingly both in central Sweden, also yellow areas) in Sweden as well.
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%B8ndersk
Palatalization
Palatalization has played a major role in the history of the Uralic, Romance, Slavic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Indic languages (but not in Germanic (my note))
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization
If we consider picking up just IE languages: Romance (heavily R1b), Slavic (heavily R1a) and Indic (part of R1a) languages. Maybe just a coincidence?
I didn’t make these things up… I’ve just collected the data from the Internet.
Maybe R1a1 and I1a were perfect ingredients for creating blond people including weather and natural conditions.
But I haven’t talked about mDNA.
July 5th, 2008 01:40
Interesting,
I’ve also find very interesting research. But they are more about genetics.
The yellow area perfect fit the map (about blonde people showed above) corridor for Finland Ostrobothnia (is yellowed) and the most frequency occurrence of R1a1 in Finland (SSO (Swedish speaking Ostrobothnia) r1a1 – 12%, SO (Southern Ostrobothnia) r1a1-19%) of course not dominated.
Link: http://vetinari.sitesled.com/finns.pdf
I’m also was curious about Norwegian R1a1 and I have tried to find same news, that hasn’t been mentioned yet, but still could be interesting enough at least for a mentioning.
When I saw
http://www.geocities.com/grpadm/Dupuy_2005_Geographical_heterogeneity_of_Y_chromosomal_lineages_in_Norway_FSI.pdf
Obviously R1a1 is highest in around Trotheim’s area. (Central Norway) I focused my interest on the language (dialect of Trotheim’s area), its accent and specialties and so on…
I’ve found on wikipedia’s web side this:
Tr?ndersk is the Norwegian dialect spoken in the region Tr?ndelag in Norway. The dialect is among other things perhaps mostly characterized by the use of apocope, palatalization and the use of retroflex flaps (thick L). Historically it also applied to contiguous regions of Jämtland and Härjedalen (interestingly both in central Sweden, also yellow areas) in Sweden as well.
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%B8ndersk
Palatalization
Palatalization has played a major role in the history of the Uralic, Romance, Slavic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Indic languages (but not in Germanic (my note))
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization
If we consider picking up just IE languages: Romance (heavily R1b), Slavic (heavily R1a) and Indic (part of R1a) languages. Maybe just a coincidence?
I didn’t make these things up… I’ve just collected the data from the Internet.
Maybe R1a1 and I1a were perfect ingredients for creating blond people including weather and natural conditions.
I haven’t still talked about mdna. ;(
September 22nd, 2008 04:31
I have to say, that this does not make any sense. Latvia and Lithuania have very few blondes, my guess 10-20 % or even less. Whereas Northern Germany and Holland have lots more than these former Sovjet countries.
Sweden, Norway and Denmark have lots of blondes, maybe more than 50 % of population (Denmark) but nowhere near 80 %
October 9th, 2008 20:44
northern portugal blonder than normandy, finland 80+ blonde people, this must be a joke.
November 6th, 2008 22:29
This map seems somewhat correct to me. I grew up in northern england and atleast half of the poeple I knew had blonde or dirty blone hair. I myself have dirty blonde even though my dad’s hair was black and my mum’s hair is dark brown. However, I doubt that a small area of Scandinavia, as shown on the map, has 80% or more blonde people. 50% to 70% is probably as high as it gets. I’m sure Viking invasions 1000 years ago helped increase the rates on the rest of the continent, but blonde hair would have no doubt occurred in britain, germany and the lowland countries even without the spread of vikings. Catergorizing blonde hair as nordic, is therefore false. Blonde hair is also germanic, celtic, gallic. Obviously the further south you get, the less blondes you will find. Common sense dictates then, that sunlight and climate of a certain region have more to do with it then whether or not you have nordic blood in you. I am certain however, that blonde hair is NOT slavic or baltic. Blonde hair in these groups is probably linked directly to viking invasions.
January 15th, 2009 11:41
Stupid title and stupid map, this is map of LIGHT HAIRED people- light blond, dark blond AND LIGHT BROWN
January 21st, 2009 22:21
The map is reasonably accurate, from what I can see…
There are some serious misconceptions about Portuguese ethnicity, as pointed out by a few posters here. The majority of Portuguese people are of Atlantic origin, not Mediterranean, and are very close genetically to the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and, to some degree, Gascons, Bretons and Normans. This is particularly true of Portuguese in the Minho region, who are ethnically the same as Galicians (N.W. Spain).
There are many more natural natural blonds in Portugal than is generally thought. The northern provinces also have people with red hair, but sometimes such types are also found in Lisbon and south.
February 14th, 2009 03:01
I would say that Wales and parts of Ireland are nearer 1-19%. People there are noticeably darker than in England and Scotland. Apparently the ancient britons were remarked on as being very dark (and that was by a roman). Finnish people are very blonde from my experience so the map does seem fairly accurate to me with a few exceptions, maybe the percentages of blondes is too high.
February 14th, 2009 03:06
That is rubbish the comment made about it is obvious that it is to do with climate and the further north you go the more blondes you get. What about the inuits? They are dark and all the siberian russians are asiatic in appearance i.e dark. I would like to know why though because in reality you would have thought that blonde hair would be more appropriate to hot countries, reflecting heat and all that. Also I have dark hair but it turns blonder with the sun???? Don´t understand it.
March 11th, 2009 13:19
This is fun reading
I am Danish (also with Swedish blond). The map is not at all near the truth!!! There are hardly any natural blondes in Scandinavia. Perhaps around 3% (adaults) are natural blondes. The natural blondes are to be found in the Kindergartens. Why is that? Well…
In Denmark around 90% of all kids are totally blond. I myself had totally white hair (I mean totally – white as snow!) till the age of 5. Then it went darker to palatine blond (still very blond right) till the age of around 17. Then it went darker. At my 30 year old birthday it was palatine blond on the out site and light brown on the inside. Very mixed. It appeared sun bleached. Now I am 36 and my hair is no longer considered blond in Denmark. If I go to France og Spain or so, they would consider me blond. But only because everything is relative.
In Denmark we call it “leverpostej” (paté).
And I am the typical example of a typical standard Scandinavian woman. We are born extremely blond – but the older we get – the darker our hair gets. We don’t get warm dark brown hair. Unfortunately! We get a very dull life less sick looking colour (not really blond — not really brunette. So again: “leverpostej”). And most of the woman therefore paint their hair blond in order to stay blond like when they were young. Perhaps also in order to try to convince themselves and their surroundings, that they still are natural blonde’s, which they are not! My guess (my hairdressers guess) is, that 80-90 % of Scandinavian blonde’s are FAKE ! They used to be blond (born blond) but after the age of 20 or 30 they are noway near blond.
I for my self can not stand my boring “leverpostej”, hence I go red (bottle red?:)). It looks fun and alive with my blue eyes.I think. Not natural – but hey – that is not my point either.
I think there is no differences between the blonde’s in the Scandinavian Countries. There are no more og no less blondes in ex. Sweeden compared to Norway or Denmark. Or the other way around. .It is all myths and wish full thinking
March 24th, 2009 06:53
Rebecca you are right about what you say. This also counts for The Netherlands where 90% of children are very blonde , even many white heads but many of those turn more golden or light blonde. I would say vast majority of people are blonde till 20-30 years but then most dark go dark to somewhat dark blonde or light brown between. But there are still many golden blondes in adulthood… if you have the doubt with women then take as example the man they hardly dye their hair.. i would agree with you that blonde hair is far more common in ages under 30… but saying only 3% are blonde in middle and old ages it seems stupid to hear.
March 30th, 2009 17:35
Well I’m a guy from Sweden, 26 years old, and I’m still blonde. Goldenblonde in sunlight and naturally darker (ashblonde?, looks almost lightbrown) when no sunlight or little light.
I believe you are right Rebecca, that most people dye their hair in adulthood. But fact remains that most of them are still blonde. It’s just a matter of definition of the color “blonde”. E.g. darkblonde compared to southern european people, there is a difference in color, obviously.
Perhaps the male population gives a better picture of percentage of blonde people, since guys seldom dye or color their hair.
But I feel I have to point out that I think of no difference between blonde and non blonde people, just because of the racism, nazism connection that exist with this subject.
For reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond
April 12th, 2009 23:32
I have been in britain, i thought they were a germanic looking people, but i got surprised natural blonde hair is rare over there. Girls there often lie about their natural hair color and pretend to be blonde. haha thats funny cause where im from actually (northern germany) i see more people darkening their hair than dying it blonde , since most women i know around here are blonde (natural) and real black hair over here is kinda rare
April 13th, 2009 00:30
Famke – I’ve never been to England, but I have been to other countries where blondes is supposed to be common; Germany, Austria, USA, Finland, Norway and Denmark. And when I read your post and came to think of it I can probably recollect my experience. In Finland I belive I saw quite a lot of blonde men, so did I in Norway, Denmark and Germany, but in the US I hardly saw any blondes(and Ive been to a couple of states), nor did I in Austria.
I refere to men on purpose since my theory is that they give a better picture of real blondes.
But it certainly depends on where in these countries you are, I mean in certain suburbs in Sweden, you won’t see any at all. And in a 100 years there wont be any at all left.
Since blonde hair like blue eyes are recessive genes, as you all know.
But one thing is probably true about this silly map. In all these countries I mentioned, blondes are more common than in the rest of the world, exeption perhaps for the Baltic countries and Russia. Even though the maps percentage numbers are exaggerated.
April 14th, 2009 00:48
The map never said about Blonde hair, but light hair. So dont be surprised to find those high percentages since this also includes “light brown” which is the most common hair color among brunettes in scandinavia. Also the definition of light hair vary quite much according where you from, for example someone that is considered light brown in denmark would be considered quite blond in spain,italy or even france since the definitions are very different since you made the definitions of blonde or not blonde according what you are used to see daily.
Im surprised that there are parts on scandinavia blonder than other (which isnt even remotely truth) maybe with exception of the far north where there lapps are more common. Also another point of mistake is that people in germany (specially the northern parts of the country) and the netherlands are very blonde and they are not less blonde than norway or sweden, let say it fair.
There arent any particularly blonde area in england since there most people (germanic invasors) intermarried native britons which had darker features, so this doenst make sense.
which part of the us you were?
i think that depends also of the region i heard that in minnesota and midwest america cities as minneapolis quite a lot of people looks “northern” talking about tall stature and fair complexions.
April 23rd, 2009 18:05
both of my parents were blonde and have high percentages of German/Swiss blood i was naturally blonde (very light) until I had my first baby at 19. My 13 year old daughter is very light blonde, my 28 year old daughter is still very light blonde naturally and my grandkids are very blonde(my 6 year old grandson has white hair)
I believe Germans have a high percentage of blondes. When I lived in Europe also I had some Danish friends who were white headed in their teenage years. I also knew some Danish who were brunettes as well as Swedish brunettes.
May 8th, 2009 12:51
I think you mean people from northern germany? they are basically (almost) all blond same as the dutch and the danes. Finding naturally white/platinum and golden blondes is very easy over there. White americans look like dark wogs compared to them, the same goes to the brits who look inbreed and short compared to northern germans, danes and dutch
July 15th, 2009 19:06
People here are right ! There are not as much blonds as there seem to be. ALthough I must say that Sweden and Norway do have higher percentage of light blonds and blue eyes then Denmark, northern Netherlands, or northern Germany. In countries like Holland, or Denmark many blonds seem to have brown or mixed brown eyes which are less common in Sweden or Norway.
August 18th, 2009 07:54
Wow, idiots. While the map does suffer from inaccuracies and wide ranges, some of the comments above are so daft and so wrong, I’m laughing out loud while reading them. It sounds like a bunch of children arguing. “Well, my mommy has a red car.”
Michael Coutts, where did you come up with the brilliant idea that blond isn’t a Slavic feature? That is such a bunch of bullshit. Just look at a picture of Slavic school children you’ll feel like you’re staring into a white-blue hot supernova. Blondism didn’t even originate in the north. Studies suggest that a massive growth in blondism occurred precisely in the East. Besides. blondism, like red hair, has been around long before anything labeled “European” ever arose.
Krele, are you on crack? I’ve traveled on business in those part of Europe 4 months out of every year over the past 5 years. Blondism is not that common there, and most blonds are clearly bleached. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the roots. Or maybe you’re just making shit up.
Most of the rest of you, wow. Get a job, or find a hobby. You sound like the inbred, vomit-looking Jimbos on stormfront.
September 9th, 2009 09:23
Being born and raised in Portugal and of Northern Portuguese stock – I can certainly attest to the misinformation regarding the categorization of Portuguese as “darks & swarthy” by nature. Both my parents were fair skinned but dark haired. Their parents ranged from the Irish- Polish-German look alike. I am a bit of all of those, being tall, fair skinned and blue eyed; certainly not your Portuguese prototype. Portugal, and the Iberian Peninsula as a whole, was invaded by a number of Germanic and Celtic types who settled in the northern part of the country. I am a descendent of those who left behind their DNA type, and I am not the only one in the family or otherwise. The Germanic/Celtic/Norman legacy is very much present and easy to witness to those who find it intriguing to say the least, finding the Latin, “daughter of Rome” stereotype not completly correct.
September 20th, 2009 22:32
I can only say that it seems obvious to me when I have travelled to Norway, Denmark and Sweden, that there were more noticable blondes than I would ever notice where I live in the midlands of England.
I never saw many people in those countries with jet black hair except fro immigrants and I would say there were a lot of people with dark blonde to light brown hair.
Also I have noticed that more people seem blonde in the rural parts of northern England as compared to where I live. Sorry I can’t give percentages but can only say that these things are noticeable.
In the same way I have noticed a great many more people with black hair or reddish brown hair in the highlands of Scotland than in England. Maybe over time regional differences will be much less noticable as we move around much more now than our ancestors did in the middle ages.
Whatever is, is.
Whatever isn’t, isn’t.