Alnortedelsur Guide of the Different European Regions Ranked from” Lightest” to “Darkest”

**alnortedelsur** · 01-25-2014, 08:14 AM

Given the never ending discussions on Apricity about what regions or countries are lighter compared to others, and which regions or countries are swarthier compared to others.

There are already some maps of Europe, intended to show the frequencies of light hair and light eyes in Europe. But those maps are so inaccurate and so made up by biased individuals, that I agree with many other people that those maps are NO more than outdated BULL SHIT, not worth to be taken seriously, and NOT scientific. So, I decided to do my own ranking.

I am not meaning with this ranking that my word is the “Absolute True” or anything like that. I could be slightly wrong in some of my statements when ranking certain regions compared to others, since I have not visited most European countries, except Spain and U.K., but I have some general culture, I have known personally and have seen on Internet and TV, different people from different European ethnicities, and I did this ranking with the best of my knowledge, basing some of it on my personal experience, and some of it on my general knowledge, and trying to be as accurate as I can. So, my ranking, rather to be intended to be “the Absolute True”, is intended to be my humble intent of guessing my own estimates regarding the degree of lightness in Europeans from north to south.

I also want to make clear that is very likely that the more East I go with my estimations, chances are that I can be more inaccurate, since I am less familiarized with Eastern Europeans when compared to western Europeans, and indeed, the more east I go, my estimations are more based on guessing, and less on detailed knowledge. But also, the more west I go, my accuracy increases, since I have a better knowledge of Western Europe, when comparing pigmentation of some human groups with others.

On my personal criteria to evaluate the degree of lightness of some Europeans human groups compared to others, I took into account NOT only the frequencies of skin color tones, but also the frequencies of hair color and eye colors.

I grouped the different European regions into seven degrees of lightness. There are seven concentric levels of “lightness” in the European map. These levels are laid from around the Baltic Basin (the lightest level, that I am going to designate as “Level 1”) down to the Southernmost Eastern Mediterranean Regions (the darker level, that I am going to designate as “Level 7”). I won’t give estimates of light and eye color frequencies, or skin tone types on every level, but just a ranking from lightest to darkest, and that’s it.

And I also want to make clear that even though populations from lighter levels are lighter when compared to populations from darker levels, this does NOT imply that EVERY person from a particular lighter level is supposed to be lighter than ANY person from a particular darker level, but just means that people from the lighter level are lighter as GROUP, ON AVERAGE, when compared to people from a darker level.

Any person with a minimum common sense should realize that there can be some light individuals from a darker human group B that individually are lighter than some individuals of a lighter human group A. As for example, some ethnic Iberians, as individuals, can be lighter than some ethnic British, independently from the fact that British Islanders, as human group, have higher frequency of blond people, higher frequency of paler skin tones, and higher frequency of light eyes when compared to Iberians.

This is my humble rough estimation:

Level 1 of lightness (The lightest Europeans): All European regions bordering the Baltic Sea, and Iceland. This includes all Scandinavian countries (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark), the ex-soviet Baltic republics (Estonia, Lithonia, and Lithuania), Prussia, Belarus, Northern Poland, Northern Germany, some parts of Russia (mainly the closest areas to the Baltic Sea and to the Baltic Republics), and probably Netherlands as well.

Level 2 of lightness: This includes British Islands, Northern France, Belgium, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Southern Poland, most of Ukraine (exception made of southern coastal regions along the Black Sea), and probably central Russia (From Moscow to Volgograd).

Level 3 of lightness: This includes Southern Russia (South of Volgograd), Southernmost Ukraine (the coastal southern regions of Ukraine), Moldavia, most of Romania (without including Bucharest), Northern Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Inner Croatia (the non-Mediterranean region of this country), Slovenia, Most of Northern Italy (including Friuli Venetia Giulia, Veneto, Alto Adige, Lombardi, Piedmont and Vall d’Aosta), most of the Southern half of France (exception made of the province of Alpes Cote d'Azur, Languedoc, and Corsica),-this includes the French departments of Rhone Alpes, Auvergne, Limousin, Paitou Charentes, Midi Pyrenees, and Aquitaine-, some Northern Spaniard regions (Aragon, Navarra, La Rioja, Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and Castilla-Leon) and Northern Portugal.

Level 4 of lightness: South and southeastern Romania (Bucharest included), Northern and northwestern Bulgaria, southern Serbia, coastal Adriatic parts of Croatia, and Northern Albania, The Northernmost region of Central Italy (Toscana), and the two southernmost regions of Northern Italy (Liguria and Emilia Romagna), the three Mediterranean coastal regions of Southern France (province of Alpes Cote d'Azur, Languedoc, and Corsica), the Catalonian countries in Spain (Catalonia, Valencia, Balearic Islands), Castilla-La Mancha, and the Madrid Comunity, in Spain too, and Central Portugal (including Lisbon).

Level 5 of lightness: Southern and Eastern Bulgaria, Southern Albania, Macedonia, probably the northernmost regions of continental Greece (East Macedonia, Central Macedonia, West Macedonia, Thessaly and Epirus), central Italy (including Lazio, Abruzzi, Umbria and Marche), and southernmost regions of the Iberian Peninsula (Murcia, Andalusia, Extremadura and Southern Portugal).

Level 6: The southernmost part of the Italian Peninsula (exception made of Calabria) -including Molise, Campania, Basilicata, and Puglia-, Sardinia (Italy), the southern half of Continental Greece, including Attica, Central Greece, West Greece, the Peloponnese, and Ionian Islands (Greece).

Level 7 (The Darkest European regions): The Southernmost Italian regions (Sicilia and Calabria), Malta, Greek Islands and Cyprus.

I invite you all to give your opinion.

Do you agree to how I grouped Europeans according to their level of lightness??

Is there something on my scheme that you would correct??

Would you add more or less levels??

Please give your own suggestions of what it should be changed from my scheme.

Thank you