According to David Livingstone, a traveller of Africa, the geographical origin of watermelons is in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. There, the ancestral watermelon grew wild and was called the Tsamma melon. For many years it represented a source of water for indegenous people.

The first evidences of the existence of watermelons were found 5,000 years ago in Egypt. We can still see some ancient buildings with Egyptian hieroglyphics symbolising watermelons. It was an Egyptian tradition to put watermelons in the burial tombs of pharaohs as a present for their afterlife. Actually, numerous watermelon seeds were recovered from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

After that, its expansion throughout the world began along the Mediterranean Sea via merchant ships. Around the 10th century, we started to find watermelons in China, which turned into the number one producer of Watermelons today.

In the 13th century, Moorish invaders spread watermelons through the rest of the European continent.

In Vietnam, there is a legend that says that watermelons were discovered in Vietnam long before it reached China. Today, there is still no reliable proof of this story.

Apparently, watermelons were introduced to North American Indians in the 1500s. The first French explorers found Native Americans cultivating watermelons in the Mississippi Valley. John Egerton, a historian believes that African slaves have also helped to introduce watermelons in the United States. The horticulturalist Jerry Parsons lists African slaves and European colonists as having distributed watermelons to many places worldwide.

Nowadays, there are over 1,200 varieties of watermelons which are produced in 96 countries worldwide.

Watermelons are made of mainly water (92%).  The real name of watermelon is Citrillus Lanatus and it is part of the botanical family Curcurbitacae which includes cucumbers, pumpkins and squash. In 1990, a man named Bill Carson grew the largest watermelon at 262 pounds. It still appears in the Guinness Book of World Records. Watermelon is really healthy. It contains vitamins A, B6 and C, fibres and potassium.

The main different types of watermelons are the followings:

• Picnic
  - Jubilee (Oblong, 20-45 lbs. Large sized brown seeds)
  - Crimson Sweet (Round to oblong 16-35 lbs. Medium sized brown seeds)
  - Allsweet (Oblong 18-30 lbs. Small brown or black seeds)

• Mini-Watermelon
  - Red Flesh (Round, 1-7 lbs. Most Seedless)
  - Yellow Flesh (Round, 1-7 lbs. Most Seedless)

• Ice Box
  -  Ice Box (Round, 5-15 lbs. Dark seeds)

• Seedless
  -  Triploid Hybrid (Round to oblong 10-20 lbs. Seedless)

• Yellow Flesh
  -  Seeded (Round, 10-30 lbs. Black seeds)
  -  Seedless (Round, 10-30 lbs.)