Rare green eyes in humans



There are a lot of different eye colours in humans but some are more rare than others. Just look around you and take a good look at peoples eye colour. There is a high chance you will notice a lot of people with brown eyes. Brown eyes are by far most common in humans. In some countries, the brown eye colour is the only colour there is. In other countries however, you would find a lot of diversity. Green, blue, hazel, grey and even violet eyes do exist as well.









Green eyes in the Middle East





Brown is the most common eye colour

In the US only 1 out of 6 people have a light (blue) eye colour. The brown eye colour is in the US the most prevalent. No surprise, because brown is also the dominant colour. In other countries, especially in northern Europe, brown is less common. Estonia for example is a very light eyed country with almost 98% having the blue eyes.



Africa is very brown

The further you go to the south, the more chance there is that you will find a person with brown eyes. In southern europe for instance, there is on average a change of 80% you will find a brown eyed person. Lighter eyes are also in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece) less common. Further south, going to Africa, light eyes are almost disappeared.



Light eyes in Scandinavia

Scandinavians tend to have a very light appearence. Light eyes are definitely the standard in these northern countries. Sweden, Norway and Denmark all have high percentages of light eyed people. Also Finland and Iceland are extremely light with almost 90% of them having light eyes (green, grey and blue). Other ''northern'' countries like The Netherlands, Scotland and Germany have light eyed peoples too. In The Netherlands approximately 80% of the inhabitants have green or blue eyes. Germany (especially the northern part of the country) follows with almost 70% having lighter eye colours.



Green eyes are rare

Within the ''light'' eyed population, the green eyes are outnumbered by the blue eyes. Green eyes are dominant over the blue eye colour but there are only very few people that carry the genes responsible for green eyes. Only 1-2% of the entire human population have green eyes.



Shades of green eyes

Green eyes can look very different. They can be very dark, almost brown. Sometimes they are very light: almost neon. It all depends on the amount and type of melanin inside the iris. If you have a lot of melanin, your eyes look darker and if you have only a tiny bit, your eyes tend to look very light (bright).



The light green eyes are most common in Iceland, The Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Estonia and Scandinavia. Dark green eyes can be find all over Europe, the US and even in Pakistan.





Dark green eyes

Light green eyes















































































Green eyes and red hair

Scientist suspects there is a relation between red hair and the green eye colour. It looks like there is a high correlation between those two human traits. Having the red hair colour is also very unique (and recessive). Only 1 - 2 % of the entire human population have naturally red hair. Of course, not only red hair coexist with green eyes. Also blondes and darker hair colours tend to have green eyes (or the other way around).





Green eyes and gender

Normally, you would expect a 50/50 gender variation between the eye colours (blue, brown), but scientist found a positive correlation between being a woman and having the green eye colour. Why green eyes are more found in women is still unknown and it is not certain a gender differentiation actually exist. The findings could be biased somehow.





red hair, green eyes and being male: the odds are very low