How many red heads are there?

Answer 1

Red hair is a genetic mutation. To have red hair, you need to inherit two recessive genes (one from the father, one from the mother). Inheriting one recessive gene will make you a carrier, but you will not have red hair. Because of this, it's a fairly low proportion of the world population- around 1-2%. With a world population of 7,000,000,000 though, this adds up to around 140,000,000. Redheads are most heavily concentrated in Western/Northern Europe (Europe as a whole is 4% red head), the US and Australia (although they are found around the world).

Within a gene-pool, carriers of the recessive gene repeatedly having children together leads to high concentrations of offspring with two recessive genes, and so concentrated populations of red heads. The highest proportion of red heads in the world is in Scotland, at around 13%, followed by Ireland at 10%. In terms of numbers, the US (at 2-6%) has the largest red-headed population.