I’m from sudan ,most of the countries in that area of Africa are pretty dark skinned except for Egypt What’s the historical reason for this?
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It’s due to the presence of melanin in the skin which determines the skin colour ,Due to natural selection, people who lived in areas of intense sunlight developed dark skin colouration to protect against ultraviolet (UV) light, mainly to protect their body from folate depletion. Evolutionary pigmentation of the skin was caused by ultraviolet radiation of the sun.
The northern coast of Africa, especially Egypt, belonged to Arabs for quite a long time. People in Egypt have more in common with people in Syria than Sudan.
Egypt has been occupied by Arabs and their European slaves, who replaced Romans, who replaced Greeks. Pretty much every northern Mediterranean country has the same progression, and they’ve all got the light skin
Modern Egyptians have been mixing with many other European groups for thousands of years including a period where Egypt was run by Greeks.
Mostly because in antiquity boat transport was by far faster and better way to get around. It was faster to get anywhere on the Mediterranean coast than to cross the Sahara desert.
Nile was navigable up to Aswan, with the rapids above that. So Egypt up to that point was connected to Mediterranean area, but Sudan further south was isolated, even though it’s not that far in absolute distance.
So as the result Egyptians mingled more with lighter skinned people around the sea, than with their southern neighbours.
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