Which dovetails nicely with this blonde joke:. Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps gmail. Expert opinions matter, especially when their knowledge is continuously refined by critical analysis. Big Think Edge For You. Big Think Edge For Business.
Preview an Edge video. Videos Billionaire warlords: Why the future is medieval. The Blonde vs. Brunette Map of Europe. Q: How do you get a blonde out of a tree? The highest percentages of fair-haired people can be found around the Baltic Sea e.
Denmark, the Polish coast and the Baltic states , making it in effect an almost entirely blonde-bounded lake. Only the German part of the Baltic coastline is remarkably un-blonde. Iceland was settled by mainly Norwegian colonists , and Icelanders still share the same degree of blondness with the largest part of Norway.
The southern border of the fairer-haired part of Great Britain seems to correspond quite well with the southern border of the Danelaw , which was ruled and settled by the Danish in the early Middle Ages. The darkest-haired part of France seems to correspond with those areas most heavily populated by its more ancient Gallo-Roman inhabitants, lighter-haired regions possibly reflect a later influx of Celts in Brittany and a more pronounced settlement of Frankish tribes of Germanic origin in northern France and down towards Burgundy.
Maybe this explains the relative blondness of that north-west corner of Spain. The darker-haired area of Switzerland seems to correspond with the areas where Rhaeto-Roman and Italian are spoken.
