170cm converts to 5’7” (5 feet 7 inches), rounded to the nearest half inch for display — the precise figure is 66.93in, or 5.58ft. But the same 170cm reads very differently depending on who’s standing at it: it’s below the US average for a man and above the US average for a woman, which this article breaks down with real percentiles below.
170cm across the height range
For context, here’s how 170cm sits among nearby heights, converted the same way (nearest half inch):
| Centimetres | Feet & inches |
|---|---|
| 150cm | 4’11” |
| 155cm | 5’1” |
| 160cm | 5’3” |
| 165cm | 5’5” |
| 170cm | 5’7” |
| 175cm | 5’9” |
| 180cm | 5’11” |
| 185cm | 6’1” |
| 190cm | 6’3” |
| 195cm | 6’5” |
- Centimetres
- 170 cm
- Metres
- 1.70 m
- Feet and inches
- 5'7"
- Total inches
- 66.9 in
Nearby heights
| cm | ft/in |
|---|---|
| 160 cm | 5'3" |
| 162 cm | 5'4" |
| 164 cm | 5'4.5" |
| 166 cm | 5'5.5" |
| 168 cm | 5'6" |
| 170 cm | 5'7" |
| 172 cm | 5'7.5" |
| 174 cm | 5'8.5" |
| 176 cm | 5'9.5" |
| 178 cm | 5'10" |
| 180 cm | 5'11" |
170 cm in feet and inches, precisely
The conversion itself is simple maths: 1 inch is exactly 2.54cm, so 170cm divided by 2.54 gives 66.929…in. Feet-and-inches height is almost never reported to two decimal places in everyday conversation, so this site rounds to the nearest half inch — 66.93in rounds up to 67.0in, which splits cleanly into 5 feet and 7 inches (5 × 12 = 60, plus 7).
That rounding step matters if you’re converting a precise measurement for something like a form or a passport, where the underlying figure is closer to 5’7” than to 5’6.9” or 5’7.1”. For everyday comparisons, though, “5’7”” is the right answer.
170cm is also 1.70m in metric, or 66.9 total inches if you need a single-unit figure rather than the feet-and-inches split. Searches for “170 cm in feet and inches”, “170cm in inches” and “what is 170 cm in feet” all land on the same conversion — the wording changes, the maths doesn’t.
How 170cm compares with this site’s 69-country dataset average
This site’s country dataset gives a simple, unweighted average across the 69 countries it currently covers: 174.9cm for men, 161.9cm for women (see Method and sources — this is explicitly not a population-weighted “world average”). Against that figure, 170cm is 4.9cm below the male dataset average and 8.1cm above the female dataset average — the same pattern as the CDC comparison below, just against a different, broader reference.
How 170cm looks depends on who’s standing next to it
The interesting part of “170cm” isn’t the conversion — it’s that the same height sits in a completely different place statistically depending on sex. Height distributions for men and women don’t overlap as much as people expect, so one figure, 170cm, can be below average for one group and clearly above average for the other.
170cm compared with the average man
Against the CDC/NHANES US adult male reference (median 175.1cm, using the LMS method this site’s percentile calculator runs on), 170cm gives a z-score of about -0.71. That converts to roughly the 24th percentile — meaning about three in four adult US men are taller than 170cm, and around one in four are the same height or shorter.
In practical terms, 170cm is a common, unremarkable height for a man, but it sits a few centimetres below the middle of the distribution rather than at it. The gap to the median (175.1cm) is about 5.1cm.
170cm compared with the average woman
Run the same maths against the CDC/NHANES US adult female reference (median 161.9cm) and the picture flips. 170cm gives a z-score of about +1.14, which converts to roughly the 87th percentile — taller than about 87% of adult US women, and among the taller quarter of the female population.
The gap here runs the other way too: 170cm is about 8.1cm above the female median, a noticeably bigger margin than the male comparison, because the female height distribution is narrower as well as lower.
| Name | Height |
|---|---|
| 170cm | 170 cm |
| US average man | 176.9 cm |
| US average woman | 163.3 cm |
Why the same height reads differently by sex
This isn’t a quirk of the data — it reflects a well-established, consistently observed sex difference in adult height across essentially every population studied, driven mainly by growth hormone levels and the timing of puberty. Men’s height distributions sit several centimetres higher on average than women’s, with only partial overlap between the two.
Because percentile is always calculated against a specific reference population, a single height like 170cm can only be described as “tall” or “short” once you specify which distribution you’re comparing it to. Reported alone, “170cm” carries almost no information about whether someone is tall for their group; reported against a sex-specific reference, it becomes a precise, useful figure.
This is also why this site’s percentile calculator always asks for sex as well as height and age — dropping that input would make any percentile figure meaningless. It’s the same reason a single “average height” headline figure, without a sex attached to it, isn’t really a usable comparison on its own.
The 24th-percentile and 87th-percentile figures above are also not fixed for life. Percentile against an adult reference only really applies once growth has finished, generally by the late teens — at younger ages, the same 170cm reading would be compared against a child or teenage growth reference instead, which shifts with age rather than staying still.
170cm around the world
National averages shift the picture further, on top of the sex difference. Using this site’s country dataset (NCD-RisC’s 2019 age-19 cohort figures, as compiled by two secondary sources — see Method and sources below), the UK adult male average is 178.21cm, so 170cm sits about 8.2cm below it, a slightly bigger gap than against the US male average. The UK adult female average is 163.94cm, so 170cm sits about 6.1cm above it.
Neither the US nor UK figure is a “world average” — this site’s dataset covers 69 countries as a starter set, not the roughly 200 that NCD-RisC’s full dataset spans, and the unweighted average across those 69 leans European. Treat national comparisons as one data point, not a universal ranking.
Method and sources
The cm-to-feet-inches conversion uses the exact ratio 1in = 2.54cm, then rounds the result to the nearest half inch for display, matching the rounding rule this site’s converter tool uses throughout.
Percentiles use the LMS method (z = (X/M − 1) / S, since L = 1 for stature) against the CDC/NHANES adult (20+) reference: median (M) 175.1cm and spread (S) 0.041064 for men; M 161.9cm and S 0.043944 for women. Both come from Fryar et al. (2016), the CDC/NCHS anthropometric reference report — the same table this site’s percentile calculator uses for the CDC/US option. Z-scores convert to percentiles via the standard normal distribution.
US and UK average heights are this site’s country dataset figures, ultimately from NCD-RisC’s 2019 cohort (age 19) as compiled by two secondary sources, since NCD-RisC’s own raw download wasn’t reachable when this dataset was built. See the country average tool for the full list and sourcing notes.
Try the full height converter for any height in cm, feet and inches or metres, or open the comparison board to see 170cm stood next to any person, height or object you choose.