how to provide a content type variable to region--header.tpl.php
Try this...
https://www.drupal.org/node/115419

&lt;?php
  // Only show if $match is true
  $match = false;
  // Which node types
  $types = array('book', 'news', 'anothernodetype' );
  // Match current node type with array of types
  if (arg(0) == 'node' &amp;&amp; is_numeric(arg(1))) {
    $nid = arg(1);
    $node = node_load(array('nid' =&gt; $nid));
    $type = $node-&gt;type;
    $match |= in_array($type, $types);
  }
  return $match;
?&gt;