The ancient Egyptians viewed their country as being divided into two major regions, which we call Upper and Lower Egypt today. Lower Egypt (or Ta Mehu) covered the Nile Delta in the far north of the country, whereas Upper Egypt (or Ta Shemu) referred to the area of the Nile Valley further upriver to the south. Egyptian historical tradition claimed that Upper and Lower Egypt were once two distinct kingdoms, with the kings of Lower Egypt wearing a red crown and those of Upper Egypt wearing a white crown. After the Upper Egyptian king Narmer/Menes conquered Lower Egypt and so “unified” the country, later Egyptian Pharaohs would combine the two crowns into one to represent their control over the “Two Lands” of Egypt.
If you’re wondering why I gave the king of Lower Egypt here lighter skin and somewhat more Middle Eastern-looking facial features than his Upper Egyptian counterpart, my reasoning was that the Lower Egyptians would have always mixed with “Asiatic” peoples from the Fertile Crescent to a greater extent than those Egyptians who lived further south within the African interior (who on the other hand would have admixed more with people living even further up the Nile in what is now northern Sudan).