Ever wondered which country tops the ginger charts? And where can you find the highest concentration of blondes?

A couple of months ago this map did the rounds. It's quite nice right? It shows that in most of Scotland and Ireland, as well as a random patch in central Russia, 10% of people are of the ginger genre. By contrast, less than 1 in every 100 people in southern Europe have red hair. Best of all, it shows all of this using a colour scale of autumnal auburns and reds.

The "chart" is probably a lot more interesting than talking about melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) - that's the gene that when mutated is likely to be responsible for causing ginger hair. It's also the gene likely to affect susceptibility to pain and ability to tan.

But let's get back to the exciting map - maps in fact - we could pull together a whole gallery of them. These ones are brought to you by Eupedia. The ginger one is quite similar to the version above so you would assume that they're based on a similar set of numbers, though the numbers themselves are harder to find.

Figure 2

Image: Eupedia, Source: A child? With a crayon? And a computer?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Figure 3

Image: Eupedia, Source: Who knows?

A lively debate between bloggers on the Human Biodiversity Forum even conjured up an eye-colour map as well as US-specific hair colour trends.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Figure 4.

Image: Anthroscape, Source: Your guess is as good as ours

Figure 5.

Image: Anthroscape, Source: US national blonde alliance?

We have no idea what data these maps are based on (if you know, or if you have any more reliable sources, please tell us about them in the comments below).

Worryingly, the only thing we can find is a reference to Carleton S. Coon, an anthropologist who appears to have written his seminal work in, er, 1933.

In the meantime, we thought we'd do some data collection of our own to find out where red heads are located and their vulnerability to gingerism (discrimination against people with red hair). We will of course share the findings with you. Most probably in an interactive map.

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