Percentage of blue-eyed people in the world. Changing eye color

The eyes are definitely the window to the soul, and if you know anything about eyes or windows, you know they come in different shades and colors!

Most often, you see brown, blue or hazel eyes when you look at people around you, but some people have very rare eye colors. What are the rarest eye colors and how are they obtained?

Did you know?

Only 2% of the world's population has green eyes! Talk about rare! The next time you see someone with this color, let them know this fact.

Which one is the most unique?

This list of rare eye colors is in no particular order, and if your eye color is one of the ones listed, consider yourself very rare.

1. Black eyes

Have you ever seen someone with eyes that seem black as night? Even though they appear black, they are actually just very, very dark brown. This is caused by an abundance of melanin. You can only tell the difference between a pupil and an iris when looking at a person in bright light!

2. Red/pink eye

Two main conditions cause the eye color to appear red or pinkish: albinism and blood leaking into the iris. Although albinos typically have very light blue eyes due to a lack of pigment, some forms of albinism can cause the eye color to appear red or pink.

3. Amber eyes

This beautiful golden eye color is often confused with brown. The difference is that brown eyes have brown and green undertones, while amber eyes have a uniform color. Dream big amount melanin and large amounts of carotenoid, the eyes of this shade almost glow! Several different animals have this eye color, but it is truly rare in humans.

4. Green eyes

Very little melanin, but too much carotenoid. Only two percent of the population have green color eye in the world. This is definitely a very rare color!

5. Purple eyes

Oh, what purple-blue! This color is most often found in people with albinism. They say it is impossible to have purple eyes without albinism. Combine the lack of pigment with the light reflecting off the blood vessels in the eyes and you get that beautiful purple color!

6. Heterochromia

This is not a set of colors, but quite rare disease eye:

  • one iris in the eye is a different color from the other irises (David Bowie!);
  • there is a place in the iris where one part is a completely different color than the rest of the iris due to pigmentation.

This is a rather unusual type of eye. And some people wear contact lenses to make their eye color more uniform. And I think that this eye color is beautiful, and such a rarity should be appreciated by others!

What determines the color of your eyes?

Many people argue that these are purely genetic factors. For the most part this is true. However, there are also genes that determine a person's eye color.

We now know what determines eye color:

  • melanin (brown pigment);
  • carotenoid (yellow pigment).

When you see someone with lungs blue eyes, this means there is no melanin or brown pigmentation.

We all used to have brown eyes?

It is believed that the human race previously only had brown eyes and due to genetic mutations, other options have appeared. Perhaps this is why brown is the most common (but no less beautiful)!

So many people who have perfect vision choose to wear contacts just to have a rare eye color, so if you have a rare color, consider yourself lucky!

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Attitudes towards a person are often based on how they look. But there are things that have little to do with it. Eye color is given to us from birth, and there are those who have it the rarest. And sometimes they say a lot about the character of the owner, which is sometimes explained quite logically.

It turns out that the rarest eye color on earth is violet . There is hardly anyone who has seen the owner of such eyes. This color appears due to a rare mutation called "Alexandria origin". Immediately at birth, such a patient has the most common color. It changes after 6-10 months.

2nd place.

Red color very rare. It occurs in people and animals with a certain disease. Also included is White color hair.

3rd place.

Pure green color eyes are very rare. A population study was conducted in Iceland and Holland, which showed that they occur more often in women than in men. The softness of associations is understandable. There is a lot of it in nature - the foliage of plants, the color of some crawling animals, and the color of human organs.

4th place.

Rare are different colored eyes . Scientifically, this phenomenon is called heterochromia. The color may include splashes of other colors, or simply both eyes are colored differently. A rare phenomenon, but original looking.

5th place.

Blue color the eye is considered a variety of blue. But it is somewhat darker and is quite rare.

6th place.

Yellow considered a variety of brown, but is rare. It is generally accepted that such people are endowed with magical abilities. They are said to have telepathic abilities. They usually have an artistic nature. If you have no bad thoughts in your mind, then communicating with people with this eye color will bring real joy.

7th place.

Hazel eye color - this is the result of mixing. Lighting can affect its hue, and it can be golden, brown, or brownish-green. Hazel eyes are a common occurrence.

8th place.

Despite the fact that the owners blue eyes They consider themselves to be in the elite category of society; there are quite a lot of them in the world. They are especially common in Europe, in its northern part and the Baltic countries. Among the population of Estonia, owners of blue eyes are found in 99% of the population, in Germany - 75%. It is generally accepted that its owners are softer and less psychologically developed than, say, those with brown eyes. They are considered a variety gray, although the latter is much more common. In Russia it occurs in almost 50% of cases.

9th place.

Very common in the world black eye color . Its owners usually belong to the Mongoloid race, in the South, Southeast and East Asia. Sometimes the color of the pupil and iris merge, which creates the feeling of a completely black eye. Given the prevalence of people living in these regions, black eyes are not uncommon. In this case, the black iris is characterized by a high concentration of the coloring pigment melanin. Accordingly, the color falling on it is absorbed. The color is also found among the Negroid race. Color eyeball sometimes has a grayish or yellowish tint.

10th place.

Most common brown eye color . His warm personality speaks volumes about his origins. It has a very large number of shades, ranging from light to dark brown. Its owners are found in the following countries:

Very bright and warm eye color. It has a sea of ​​shades from light to dark brown. It looks quite strange, and, undoubtedly, impressive.

According to scientific research and statistical data, the rarest eye color is green. Its owners make up only 2% of the total population of the planet.

The green tint of the iris is determined by a very small amount of melanin. Its outer layer contains a yellow or very light brown pigment called lipofuscin. In the stroma, a blue or light blue tint is present and dissipated. The combination of a diffuse shade and lipofucin pigment gives green eye color.

As a rule, the distribution of this color is uneven. Basically, there are a lot of shades of it. IN pure form it is extremely rare. There is an unproven theory that green eyes are linked to the red hair gene.

Why green eyes are rare

In an attempt to find out why green eye color is rare today, you should contact possible reasons to the Middle Ages, namely to the time when the Holy Inquisition was a very influential institution of power. According to her doctrines, those with green eyes were accused of witchcraft, considered accomplices of dark forces and burned at the stake. This situation, which lasted for several centuries, almost completely displaced the inhabitants of Central Europe from the phenotype of the already recessive gene green iris. And since pigmentation is an inherited trait, the chance of its occurrence has decreased significantly. So green eyes became an infrequent occurrence.

Over time, the situation has leveled out somewhat, and now green-eyed ones can be found in Northern and Central Europe, and sometimes even in its southern part. Most often they can be seen in Germany, Scotland, Iceland and Holland. It is in these countries that the green eye gene predominates and, interestingly, is observed more often in women than in men.

In its pure form, namely the shade of spring grass, green is still a rarity. Mostly there are a variety of variations: gray-green and marsh.

The countries of Asia, South America and the Middle East are dominated by dark eyes, mostly .

If we talk about the distribution and predominance of individual shades of the iris on the territory of Russia, the situation is as follows: those with dark eye color account for 6.37%, eyes of a transitional type, for example, brown-green, have 50.17% of the population, and representatives light eyes- 43.46%. These include all shades of green.

Eyes are the mirror of the soul. You can drown in their bottomless depths, you can pin them to a place with your gaze or captivate your heart forever... Masters of words often use similar epithets. And indeed, sky blue eyes enchant, bright green eyes enchant, and black eyes pierce through. But how often in real life can be found green eyed people, and what eye color is the rarest? Read on for answers to these questions.

What eye colors are there?

In reality, there are only 4 pure eye colors - brown, gray, blue and green. But the mixing of colors, pigmentation, the amount of melanin, and the network of blood vessels together create many shades. Thanks to this effect, there are people with light brown, amber, black and even red eyes.

This is theoretically possible, but practically no one has seen it yet

Scientists who study what determines eye color, the heredity of this issue and possible mutations have experimentally determined that theoretically people with violet eyes should live on Earth.

Purple color from the point of view of genetics is a pigmented variant of blue color. Except scientific theories There is evidence that in the remote corners of North Kashmir on the Hindustan Peninsula there are residents with real lilac eyes. Unfortunately, this is only oral evidence, not confirmed by photography or video, so skeptics are cold to such a statement.

However, the eyes of Elizabeth Taylor, the popular actress and queen of Hollywood, had an unusual purple colour. This is clearly visible in the film “Cleopatra”, where she played brilliantly main role. And these could not be colored lenses, because their production began in 1983, and the film was released in 1963. Although the play of light and shadow coupled with skillful makeup sometimes works wonders...

If we discard the hypothesis about the existence of people with violet eyes on earth, then we can safely say that green is the rarest eye color on the planet. Only 2% of the world's population possess it. In this case, the following patterns are observed:

  • The vast majority of green-eyed people live in central and northern Europe, mainly in Scotland, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Iceland, and Finland. If in Iceland 40% of the total population have green eyes, then this color of the “mirror of the soul” cannot be found in Asia or South America;
  • In women, this eye color is 3 times more common than in men;
  • there is a direct relationship between green eyes and skin and hair color. Green-eyed people are almost always white-skinned and most often red-haired. During the Inquisition, green-eyed, red-haired women were considered witches and burned at the stake;
  • If mom and dad are green-eyed, then the probability of having a child with the same eye color is 75%.

If only one parent is green-eyed, then the probability of having the same baby is reduced to 50%. Interestingly, if one parent has brown eyes and the other has blue eyes, they will never have a green-eyed child. But if both parents are blue-eyed, then the child’s eyes will probably be green, and not blue color. That's genetics!

The famous poetess Marina Tsvetaeva had eyes of a beautiful emerald shade. Demi Moore and the beautiful Angelina Jolie have irises of the rarest natural green color.

Amber or gold

These colors are varieties of brown eyes. They have a monochrome yellow tint or a mixture of golden and light brown tones. Such exotic wolf-like eyes are very rare. Their amazing color is due to the presence of lipofuscin pigment.

Blue lake – blue magnet

In third place in terms of prevalence are blue eyes. They are most common among Europeans, especially in the Baltic and Northern European countries. For example, almost all Estonians (99% of the population!) and Germans (75% of the population) are blue-eyed.

This shade is quite common among residents of Iran, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

Gray and blue are shades of blue, due to the greater saturation of melanin in the iris. Grey eyes capable of changing tonality from light gray, mousey to the rich color of wet asphalt, depending on the owner’s mood and lighting.

It is known that only about 6 thousand years ago a mutation occurred at the gene level, as a result of which the first child with blue eyes was born.

Blue-eyed people have a greater need for sex and pronounced reproductive functions.

Brown-eyed

The most common eye color is brown. Depending on the saturation of melanin in the iris, the eyes can be light or dark brown, almost black. Scientists are 100% sure that 10 thousand years ago all people on the planet had brown eyes.

A variety of brown shade is black. Black-eyed inhabitants of the Earth are most often found in Asia and Africa. Scientists know that dark color skin causes dark eye color. A black man with blue eyes is the rarest phenomenon on the planet.

Pathologies

Deviations from the norm are red and multi-colored eyes. In the first case, the cause is albinism - a congenital absence of the coloring pigment melanin in the body. In the second - heterochromia, a congenital or acquired pathology. Since ancient times, people with with different eyes attributed magical powers.

Eyes are not only a mirror of the soul, but also a kind of decoration. People with green eyes are fraught with magical mystery and mystery, and therefore have always been considered special (they were once even considered sorcerers and witches). Today, green eyes are the rarest in the world. If you are interested in how many people with green eyes live on the planet, the answer is about 2 percent. Why so few? First of all, due to the medieval Inquisition, which mercilessly destroyed their owners. Women with unique eyes emerald color They were called witches and persecuted in every possible way, and in those days such an accusation was a good reason for being burned at the stake.

Historians claim that about 90 percent of the women burned at that time were young and without children. Moreover, the superstitious men of that time tried their best to avoid contact with green-eyed ladies, who became fewer and fewer over the years. Hence the current rarity of green - a consequence of the actions of the inquisitors and medieval superstitions.

Note! Eyes are green in people whose body produces a small amount of melanin (this is the pigment that is responsible for the color and color saturation of the iris).

The rarest eye colors

First, let's take a look at which iris colors are considered the rarest. Unusual ones make the owner’s appearance memorable and attract the attention of others.

Name, photoShort description

Previously, it was believed that fantastic purple eyes could only be obtained with the help of colored contact lenses, but recently information has appeared that some residents of North Kashmir were endowed with this color by nature itself (not confirmed). Some newborns have a lilac/violet tint to their eyes, but this disappears over time.

Are a consequence of the lack of melanin - blood vessels are translucent, and therefore the eyes are the color of blood. Such an extraordinary color is extremely rare to find even in albinos, that is, carriers of the gene. They usually have either brown or blue eyes.

Often found among Germans, Irish, and Turks. Carriers of the gene are mostly women. As noted earlier, this rarity is due to the activity of medieval inquisitors.

It comes in different shades, the rarest of which is yellowish-gold (“wolf eyes”). A nutty tint may also occur. This is the color of eyes that are often given to werewolves and vampires.

Brown shade, observed with very large quantities melanin in the body - in this case, the pigment absorbs almost all rays of light. This is why the eyes resemble small coals. Usually they see with black eyes the world representatives of the Negroid race.

Video – The rarest eye colors on Earth

The rarity of green eyes

As noted earlier, such rarity is a legacy of the Middle Ages, when the Holy Inquisition was an extremely influential institution. As a result, green eyes were practically forced out of the European phenotype. And due to the fact that pigmentation is hereditary, the chance of green eyes has decreased many times over.

On a note! Over time, of course, the situation has improved somewhat, but in its “pure” form, that is, the shade of green grass, eyes are still very rare. Transitional shades predominate - light green, for example, or brown-green.

It is also worth mentioning the uneven distribution of green color. There is even a theory according to which green eyes are directly related to the gene for red hair.

Characteristics of people with green eyes

Does eye color affect a person's character?

It is believed that green-eyed people are mostly suspicious and vulnerable. They may look calm, but in reality inside them there is a true hurricane of emotions and feelings. People with green eyes are not used to showing others their state of mind. At the same time, they are good psychologists - they will always listen, reassure, and know how to keep secrets. Among green-eyed people there are many creative personalities - artists, painters, writers.

Does this affect your health?

A deficiency of the melanin pigment can cause various kinds eye pathologies and illness. In addition, problems may arise with the digestive or nervous system. Changes are often observed hormonal levels, provoked insufficient production melanocytes. Green-eyed people often change their mood, which others, as we have already found out, may not even be aware of.

ABOUT personal life people with emerald eyes

Such people feel their partners perfectly, sometimes even disappear into them, so to speak. They know how to love and care, they are ready to go through any difficulties and trials for the sake of a strong family, without expecting anything from their partner. similar actions. In short, these are good spouses, family men, and loving parents.

Friendship and green eyes

People with emerald eyes are always ready to help and support, even if they have to sacrifice something for this. They give more than they take, they rejoice for their friends with all their hearts. However, in friendship they are extremely demanding, they need to be treated the same way they treat others. That is why betrayal for such people is a terrible blow, which they will most likely never forgive. This means the friendship will end.

How many people on the planet have green eyes?

As we already mentioned at the beginning of the article, such a rare iris color is found in only 2 percent of the world's population. This phenomenon is especially rare among residents of the Middle East, South America, and Asia. As for the most “green-eyed” countries, these include Iceland (about 35 percent) and Turkey (up to 20 percent of the total population). In addition, green eyes can be found among residents of Scotland, Germany and other northern European countries.

On a note! Among Russians, emerald eyes are very rare. Therefore, if you meet a green-eyed passerby somewhere, you can consider this a good omen.

A few words about heterochromia

Violation of eye color deserves special attention. For those who don’t know, heterochromia refers to the phenomenon when a person’s eyes different color. This is described in more detail in our article about, and therefore we will keep it brief. According to statistics, this phenomenon It is even less common than “green eyes” (only in 1 percent of the world’s population). Note that people with eyes of different colors were also associated with evil, which is easily explained by a banal fear of everything inexplicable.

Important! Scientists are still debating which eye color is the rarest. Some consider it a green shade, others insist on the existence of people with violet eyes. Also, color effects cannot be excluded when varying degrees illumination In any case, everyone has their own unique iris color. Remember this!

Sometimes it happens that the color of a person’s eyes changes as quickly as the color of a chameleon. The only difference is that chameleons do this intuitively and consciously, in order to hide and merge with environment. This is inherent in their nature. But in humans, this is due to other reasons hidden in the characteristics of the body. The nature of the appearance of such a phenomenon has not yet been studied

Video – Myths and facts about green eyes