Average human height by country

Individual surveys and studies

Accuracy

• Some studies may allow subjects to self-report values. Generally speaking, self-reported height tends to be taller than measured height, although the overestimation of height depends on the reporting subject's height, age, gender and region.
• Test subjects may have been invited instead of random sampling, resulting in sampling bias.
• Some countries may have significant height gaps between different regions. For instance, one survey shows there is difference in mean height between the tallest state and the shortest state in Germany. Under such circumstances, the mean height may not represent the total population unless sample subjects are appropriately taken from all regions with using weighted average of the different regional groups.
• Different social groups can show different mean height. According to a study in France, executives and professionals are taller, and university students are taller than the national average. As this case shows, data taken from a particular social group may not represent a total population in some countries.
• Height measurement can vary over the course of a day, due to factors such as a decrease from exercise done directly before measurement, or an increase after lying down for a significant period of time. For example, one study revealed a mean decrease of in the heights of 100 children from getting out of bed in the morning to between 4 and 5 p.m. that same day. Such factors may not have been controlled in all of the following studies.
• It should be remembered that the stature of a man standing, in adult males, varies between the normal individual extremes of – and that can exist means results lower than or ≥180–182 cm : but these extreme results are based on series "in which a choice has occurred, voluntarily or not".
• According to the geographical-anthropological study by Asutosh Goswami et al., 95% of the world global population has average statures between and.

Measured and self-reported figures

Estimated average height of 19-year-olds in 2019

Accuracy

• The study uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate the trends in mean height from 1985 to 2019. 1,344 academics having collated the results of 2,181 studies covering 65 million people. Their findings are based on selected material rather than all available.
• The table and diagrams of this subsection are reliant on one singular publication which in turn cites surveys that are largely not available to the public because the public has no free access to them.
• Height measurement can vary over the course of a day, due to factors such as a decrease from exercise done directly before measurement, or an increase after lying down for a significant period of time. For example, one study revealed a mean decrease of in the heights of 100 children from getting out of bed in the morning to between 4 and 5 p.m. that same day. Such factors may not have been controlled in the following study.

Estimated figures