Average Height by Country

Choose men or women to rank all 200 countries and territories by that group’s mean height. Both columns remain visible. Search with a local-language name, an English name or a three-letter ISO code such as NLD, USA, CHN or JPN. You can also change the table’s sort order and download the filtered results as CSV.

Choose a country from the menu or click its name in the table. The summary shows its mean, rank and optional difference from your height. The chart shows the ten highest means plus your selection if needed. Searching filters the table without recalculating country ranks.

• Switch between centimeters and feet/inches without changing the data.
• In imperial mode, enter your own height as total inches: 5 ft 9 in is 69 inches.
• Read the birth-cohort note before comparing these values with another website.

This page uses NCD Risk Factor Collaboration's 2016 adult-height study, distributed as downloadable data by Our World in Data. We select only the 1996 birth cohort, whose estimates describe mean height at age 18 in 2014. The year 1996 is a year of birth, not the year when every person was measured. The retrieval date is also separate from the study's reference year.

The original study combined population-based measurement studies with a statistical model to estimate comparable trends. The 200 rows here represent countries and territories available in both male and female exports. Regional and world aggregates are excluded from the ranking. These values are not a new survey of all adults living in each place today.

Within this cohort, the Netherlands has the highest male estimate at about 182.5 cm, while Latvia has the highest female estimate at about 169.8 cm. Switching the group changes the order: the country at the top of one column does not have to lead the other. Use the live table for the full list and the selected country's exact displayed value.

A rank is a convenient sorting label, not a definitive league table of biological differences. Small gaps between neighbouring countries may be comparable to estimation uncertainty, which is not shown in the downloaded mean-only table. A tenth of a centimeter in the display should not be interpreted as a precisely established difference between populations.

Enter your measured height to see a simple arithmetic difference: your height minus the selected mean. A positive result means you are taller than that mean; a negative result means you are shorter. For example, 175 cm compared with a mean of 170 cm produces a difference of +5 cm. This comparison uses the selected male or female estimate.

That result is not your percentile. Calculating an individual percentile requires a suitable distribution, its variability, and a compatible age and sex reference. Knowing a country's mean alone does not tell us what proportion of its people are shorter than you. Children should use age-specific growth references rather than an adult country average.

Height reflects inherited variation alongside conditions during fetal development, childhood, and adolescence. Nutrition, infection, sanitation, access to healthcare, and living conditions can influence growth. Country-level differences therefore cannot be reduced to a single food, habit, ancestry label, or national characteristic.

A country mean also combines people from different regions, social circumstances, and family backgrounds. Migration and changes in population composition can affect later estimates. The overlap between individual heights across countries is large: a population mean does not predict the height of a particular person, or describe every community within a country.

The same country's average can change across birth cohorts as childhood conditions change. A comparison of 18-year-olds born in 1996 and all adults measured decades later answers two different questions. Older adult samples also reflect earlier generations and may include age-related height loss.

Using the same cohort removes one important source of mismatch, but does not make these estimates timeless. If you need a current national estimate for policy, clinical assessment, clothing design, or ergonomics, seek a recent representative survey for the actual target population and check its age range, measurement protocol, and sampling weights.

The horizontal bars start at zero, so a small gap in height is not magnified by a tightly cropped axis. Cyan represents male estimates, rose represents female estimates, and amber identifies your chosen country. Hover or use the accessible chart interaction to inspect values; the same data remains available as text in the table.

The chart shows the ten highest means for the selected group, plus the selected country if needed. It does not show an unweighted world average. Averaging these 200 country means would give each territory the same weight as a very large country, which would not represent the average person worldwide.

For a useful personal comparison, measure barefoot on a level floor with the back against a vertical wall. Look straight ahead, use a flat object to mark the crown of the head, and repeat the measurement. Shoes, hair volume, posture, and time of day can introduce differences larger than the small gaps between some country estimates.

One inch equals exactly 2.54 centimeters and one foot equals 12 inches. We keep the source precision for sorting and arithmetic, then round displayed numbers to one decimal. Feet-and-inches values are formatted for reading; the chart uses total inches in imperial mode so the numerical axis remains continuous.

Add up to four countries to your comparison, then open the free 3D scene with their selected male or female mean heights. Your own height is included if you entered it. The figures share one scale, so you can see a gap that may be hard to picture from the table.

A country figure marks a statistical mean, not a typical body shape or a prediction about a person from that country. Label averages clearly and use measured heights for real people. For the numerical gap between two heights, try the height difference calculator.