Facial Structure Recognition
Here’s a somewhat controversial question (depending on who you ask it to): Can you tell someone’s “race” by looking at their facial structure? That is to say could you tell the difference between, for example, a native Japanese / Korean / Chinese person just by looking at their face?
race – n.
- A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
- A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.
This is a question which I’ve found occasionally comes up in conversation with both Asian and non-Asian friends and I’ve never heard a definitive answer. To the latter group Asians generally tend to “look the same” (which will undoubtedly get you in trouble) while for the former it’s less clear cut ~ some people claim they can while others say it’s impossible. A quick Google search confirms that there are a variety opinions in both directions and there are even whole sites dedicated to the subject.
I scratched my head about this for a long while thinking that logically if a group of people come from the same hereditary genetic pool, based in a semi-enclosed geographical location with a shared heritage of thousands of years, then surely wouldn’t they end up with some similar physical characteristics which would be reliably identifiable, at least for a high percentage of the population?
As per the example here’s my rather un-scientific theory based on morphological observation:
Photo by Ernesto JT
Japanese people tend to have a longer / oval facial structure with wider / larger eyes and more pronounced noses. Japanese women often put on thick makeup giving them a pale white complexion.
Photo by Kam
Chinese people tend to have rounder faces than both Korean and Japanese people. China is a huge multi-ethnic country unlike Korea and Japan (which are more ethnically homogeneous) making it much harder to differentiate or generalize.
Photo by Dax Melmer
Korean people tend to have flatter faces with higher / squarer cheek bones and smaller eyes with single eyelids (opposed to double). A high proportion of Korean women have had cosmetic surgery somewhat confusing things.
Although I’ve found the above a fairly reliable definition trying to guess based on facial structure alone seems to be pretty hit-and-miss in reality. The success rate greatly increases when you included other observable indicators such as name, language, behavior, hairstyle and clothing. According to more scientific studies both East Asians and Caucasians are more easily identifiable by facial features than others.
Failing all that you could just ask which is probably a safer bet than trying to guess and risk upsetting anyone!
Can you tell the difference? (Note: any racist comments will be deleted).
Update (25/02/11): I found this fascinating graphic showing the composite ‘average’ face of women around the world from faceresearch.org. I think my descriptions above hold-up pretty well based on this.
284 Responses to “Facial Structure Recognition”
I was married to an Asian woman for a very long time. She said she could not tell the difference between Koren, Japanese, or Chinese women but she had an idea. With the multi-national-Asian friends we had I could see some of what she was saying but could never distinguish nationality among those friends even thought they were all Asian. I’d say it is similar to trying to determine if you were French or English or German. As a Caucasian I can’t tell the difference among nationality of Europeans. Yet I know if I’m around someone east Europe verses West. Can’t really say why though. Must be the way they express themselves both physically, emotionally and other cues. The one difference I can easily pick out however, is people of immediate African decent compared to Americans of the same race that have been in America for some generations. The difference is obvious almost immediately. By the way, the ladies you showed for comparison are all very beautiful. Thanks for your page!
I want to take all the faces and put them on a map of the world and see if it looks like more of a gradient in face looks.
My, that certainly would create a very interesting image. I think I should like to see something like that. I might even do one for myself…
Except it wouldn’t be much of a gradient when South African is completely caucasian stereotype and West African is the complete opposite-the black stereotype. Gradient already broken.
So this looked like an interesting idea. So I did it. You can find it here:
http://oi49.tinypic.com/spx835.jpg
Not surprising, but very interesting. Very much a gradient.
Enjoy.
Interesting article ^_^
I draw a lot and still find myself to be often making grave mistakes on the combination of skin colour and facial features, so the last image will definitely one that I’ll be studying ^_^
Even the Chinese themselves look different from the other, since China is a very big country with lots of ethnic groups. There are 56 ethnic groups there, depending on the area they live and those who live in the north look different than the south. For example, Northern Chinese are typically taller with single eyelids, fairer skin, huge cheekbones, and higher nose bridge. Southern Chinese are typically shorter with larger eyes, darker skin, rounder face, and lower nose bridge. Even some Chinese from northwestern China like Xinjiang can look Arabic, Kazakh, Tartar, Uyghurs, and Russian because Xinjiang is border to Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The only thing that I notice about the Japanese is the height, they are typically shorter in stature as oppose to Koreans and Northern Chinese who are taller. Most Japanese I have seen also have somewhat smaller jaw, which resulting the snaggly teeth, another typical Japanese feature. Some Japanese also tend to be quite hairy and a good number of them have bowed legs, I notice this when I went to Tokyo.
Koreans are typically tall like Northern Chinese, and look quite similar to Northern Chinese from the bordering Northeastern China provinces like Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning.
This sounds alot more accurate than what I just read above. Thanks for your input.
i think you forgot to put lots about the malay ancestry gallery… like hawaiian, indonesian, borneo, malaysian, sri lankan malay, s.african malay, american latin malay, american native…. but nevermind… this gallery is enough to show god’s intelligent…
there was 5 major ethnic in the world.. i guessed.
Caucasian: red-fairer skin, blonde hair, auburn hair, brown hair, red hair usually big abdomen people.
small-nose
African : Black, Purple, Dark Brown Skin, black afro hair, usually though & big abdomen people,
wide-nose, big eye,
East-oriental: yellow-pink fairer skin, usually black hair, not sot many have dark copper-brown hair, fit-posture abdomen people. small-wide nose. small-slanted eye.
Middle East: Red-yellow skin, Black, Auburn, Brown Hair, hairy & big abdomen, long-nose, big eye sometimes slanted eye.
Malay archipelago people: Mahogany-Maple skin, Black hair, fit posture abdomen people, small-wide nose, small eye… sometime slanted eyes….
this what i see in malaysia… bcoz malaysia just have a hyper-mixtured foreigner here… huhuhu..
I feel as though the hardest nationalities to place in distinct ethnic facial feature would be those in south and Central America. Unlike many countries with a slavery history or countries that have allowed refugees during times of war, they manage to have distinct groups of people. But in Brazil, panama, and the Dominican Republic, there are no racial demographic annuities. Like how we have “black/african American, black non-hispanic, hispanic, white, Asian/pacific islander”. Brazil has a huge population of people with a Japanese background, of course african (typically west and south west), the native/indigenous Brazilian population, and of course Portuguese. These people have largely managed to blend and it is very common to find someone of multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds living in brazil. Panama and the Dominican Republic are the same way minus the large influence of Asian immigrants.
My father has been mapping our ancestry for quite a few years now, based only on verbal family history, stating that we were Polish-German-Hungarian . However, a conversation with my maternal grandmother about five years ago revealed that she had an uncle who emmigrated from Russia (Russian-Jew) to Poland with his family. After doing a little research of the origin of surnames it turns out that my great-grandparent’s last names (the same with the exception of “i” vs. “e” on the end) originated in Russia (which explained why my dad hit a dead-end in Poland). Suddenly it made sense…from my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, me and my daughter (VERY strong maternal genes!)…I had never found “us” in the Polish faces on my father’s side. This facial chart was one of many sites I used to show my father the difference in characteristics…and the bad news that he had to start all over again!
Wow those ‘average’ faces at the bottom are all very beautiful lol. I wouldn’t say the average English woman looks like that.
I feel soo left out in this because im very mixed i mean i get a lot of people telling me im beutiful but..i dont know well ok here goes my mother is caucasian her ancesters are all kinds of european plus native american while my father is black his ancesters coming from africa but then somewhere along the lines i have asian most likely korean
Or chinese also after research i discovered i had ancestors from barbados and other latin countrys yey thats me
It’s so sad to find that I couldn’t found INDONESIAN girl face there. It should after Indian and before Iran…
Indonesia has a lot of etnics and it blends in one face. You should search more of us in the internet, and you will find our face are exotic that any asian face you can say. There are black, yellow, white and pink on our colour of face. We can be look asian as we can look caucasian and negroid at the same look at the same face.
I have asian face with negroid lips (bumps like and wide) and caucasian skin (pinky white on the cheek) though I has no hystory of having caucasian nor negroid or any asian you named above….I just INDONESIA
It’s so sad to find that I couldn’t found INDONESIAN girl face there. It should after Indian and before Iran…
Indonesia has a lot of etnics and it blends in one face. You should search more of us in the internet, and you will find our face are exotic than any asian face you can say. There are black, yellow, white and pink on our colour of face. We can be look asian as we can look caucasian and negroid at the same look at the same face.
I have asian face with negroid lips (bumps like and wide) and caucasian skin (pinky white on the cheek) though I has no family hystory of caucasian nor negroid or any asian you named above….I just INDONESIA
…and every single one of those women from the faceresearch picture could be brazilian. Just saying.
I honestly have a really hard time telling the differance beyond skin color. I grew up in a place where the majority of people were mixed, so that might be a factor, but aside from skin color I can’t tell you what, or if anything is distinctly different between, say, the Irish and Afghan faces. I try not to assing ethnicity to people, but I often can’t tell.
I think people could have the ability to tell not only differences in ethnic characteristics, but also what someone is, etc. I, however think it’s even more possible if someone has an interest in ethnicities and culture, such as myself. Travel helps as well. And yes, while Asia is the most vast continent in ethnicities and countries, you can really tell the difference between French, German or English (though the last two share similarities due to the Germanic make-up of Anglo-Saxons), as someone had stated. In fact, Europe may be a smaller continent, but you could really tell which ethnicity someone is, if you just look. Europe has many cultures and ethnic characteristics. I think it’s more of regionalism rather than simply continental, because ethnic groups from a certain region, tend to have more similar ethnic characteristics (ie. Polynesia; Mediterranean) since nearness makes sense, but then it is possible for some further differences depending on a country’s history.