When working on the world-building for your secondary fantasy world, here’s an interesting thought to chew on. Did you know that Northern Europeans are uniquely depigmented?

“White,” of course, is a a social designation. The question really is, “Why are northern Europeans depigmented?” Here is a map of human skin tone. The natives of northern Europe are oddly light-skinned. They are paler than anyone else on earth.

Most people know that it has something to do with sunlight, UV, latitude, and vitamin D. Here is a map of solar UV at the surface taken from satellite. It matches the skin-tone map everywhere but Europe.

Read the entire article as it traces development back step by step to figure out why Northern Europe is unique in its depigmentation.