How does your height compare to people in your country?
Enter your height, sex, and country to see exactly where you sit in the population distribution. Data from 18.6 million adults across 200 countries.
Querying population data…
Where does your size rank in the clinical data?
15,521 clinician-measured men. No self-reported data. The most rigorous benchmark available.
How height percentiles are calculated
This calculator uses a normal distribution model fitted to population data from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, which pooled height measurements from 18.6 million adults across 200 countries. For each country and sex, the average (mean) and standard deviation are used to calculate what proportion of the population falls below your height. That proportion is your percentile rank.
A percentile of 75 means you are taller than 75% of people of the same sex in your selected country. It does not mean you are tall in an absolute sense, since the definition of tall varies greatly between populations.
A Dutch man at the 50th percentile (182.5 cm) would be in the 83rd percentile in the United States.
How height averages vary by country
The Netherlands consistently ranks as home to the tallest population in the world. Dutch men average 182.5 cm (6 ft 0 in), compared to 175.4 cm (5 ft 9 in) in the United States and 163.4 cm (5 ft 4 in) in Guatemala. These differences reflect a combination of genetic heritage, nutrition quality, and socioeconomic conditions across generations. Countries with historically high protein consumption and strong public health infrastructure tend to have taller adult populations.
Within-country differences by sex are also substantial. In the United States, men average approximately 13.9 cm taller than women. The gap is similar across most countries, typically ranging from 11 cm to 14 cm, though the absolute values differ markedly.
Does height percentile matter for health?
Height itself is not a modifiable health risk factor for adults. However, height in childhood is a sensitive indicator of nutritional adequacy and general health. Population-level increases in average height over the 20th century in developed countries largely reflect improvements in childhood nutrition and reductions in infectious disease burden. In adulthood, extreme height deviations (very short stature due to growth hormone deficiency, or very tall stature associated with certain genetic conditions) may carry medical significance, but the vast majority of variation within typical ranges is benign.
Frequently asked questions
The NCD-RisC data is among the most comprehensive height databases available, covering surveys from 1914 to 2014. Country-level estimates are based on measured (not self-reported) heights where possible. However, data quality varies by country: wealthier nations with established health survey infrastructure have more precise estimates. Figures for some lower-income countries involve greater uncertainty. The US data is additionally validated against CDC/NCHS NHANES measured values.
The population datasets used are collected and reported by sex (biological sex as recorded at birth or in clinical settings), which is distinct from gender identity. The distributions are based on measured heights for males and females as defined in the source surveys. There is currently no large-scale population dataset that provides height distributions for non-binary or transgender individuals with the statistical power needed for a reliable percentile calculator.
Yes. All figures in this calculator refer to adult heights (typically defined as 18 years and older in the source datasets). Height percentiles for children and adolescents are a different calculation that requires age-specific growth charts (such as the CDC growth charts for ages 2 to 20) and should not be compared to adult population norms.
The calculator includes the 20 countries with the most traffic and best-quality data. If your country is not listed, select the country geographically and culturally closest to yours. For example, users from New Zealand may find Australia a reasonable proxy, and users from neighbouring European countries may use Germany or France. Note that this introduces additional uncertainty into the result.
In most countries, average height increased substantially during the 20th century as nutrition and public health improved. The Netherlands saw one of the largest gains: Dutch men grew an average of 20 cm taller between 1870 and 2000. In many wealthy countries this secular trend has now plateaued. In some countries, notably in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, height gains stalled or reversed in certain birth cohorts during periods of economic or political instability. The NCD-RisC data is aligned to approximately the 2000s birth cohort for adults, so there may be some divergence from the very tallest or shortest age cohorts within a country.
- NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). A century of trends in adult human height. eLife 2016;5:e13410.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / National Center for Health Statistics. NHANES Anthropometric Reference Data.
- Health Survey for England, NHS Digital. Adult anthropometric measures, overweight and obesity 2022.