Average adult male height varies widely by country — from 183.78cm (6’0.4”) in the Netherlands down to 159.8cm (5’3”) in Timor-Leste, among the 69 countries in this dataset. Most countries in Europe average above 178cm (5’10”), while much of South and Southeast Asia and Central America averages below 170cm (5’7”). Use the calculator below to rank your own height against any of them.
Average male height by country
This table picks a deliberate spread from the full 69-country dataset — the tallest few, several large or frequently searched countries in the middle of the range, and the shortest few — rather than just a top-10 list, to show the real range.
| Rank (of 69) | Country | Average male height |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netherlands | 183.78cm (6’0.4”) |
| 2 | Montenegro | 183.3cm (6’0.1”) |
| 3 | Estonia | 182.8cm (5’11.9”) |
| 6 | Denmark | 181.89cm (5’11.6”) |
| 27 | United Kingdom | 178.21cm (5’10”) |
| 30 | United States | 176.9cm (5’9.6”) |
| 38 | China | 175.66cm (5’9.2”) |
| 61 | India | 166.5cm (5’5.6”) |
| 62 | Indonesia | 166.26cm (5’5.5”) |
| 66 | Guatemala | 163.4cm (5’4.3”) |
| 69 | Timor-Leste | 159.8cm (5’3”) |
This dataset’s own simple average across all 69 countries is 174.9cm for men — a plain, unweighted mean of the countries in this file, not a population-weighted global figure. It leans a little taller than a true world figure would, since the 69-country subset includes more European countries than its share of world population.
Compared with the average male in United Kingdom
0.2 cm
shorter than the average of 178.2 cm.
United Kingdom ranks #27 of 69 countries in this dataset (42 have a lower average).
Top 10 tallest-average countries (male)
| Rank | Country | Average height |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netherlands | 183.8 cm |
| 2 | Montenegro | 183.3 cm |
| 3 | Estonia | 182.8 cm |
| 4 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 182.5 cm |
| 5 | Iceland | 182.1 cm |
| 6 | Denmark | 181.9 cm |
| 7 | Latvia | 181.2 cm |
| 8 | Czechia | 181.2 cm |
| 9 | Slovakia | 181 cm |
| 10 | Ukraine | 181 cm |
Where does this data actually come from?
The figures on this page trace back to the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), the standard academic reference for global height and other anthropometric trends, using its 2019 cohort data for the age-19 population (a common convention for reporting “adult” height, since growth has essentially finished by then).
Being direct about the chain matters here: NCD-RisC’s own raw data file could not be downloaded directly when this dataset was built, so the figures in this file were compiled from two secondary sources that themselves cite NCD-RisC — World Population Review and heightcomparisoncalculator.com — and cross-checked against each other where their country lists overlap. This is not a first-party download from NCD-RisC, and the article says so plainly rather than implying otherwise.
That also means this is a 69-country starter set, not NCD-RisC’s full roughly 200-country dataset. Coverage will expand once the primary NCD-RisC download becomes reachable.
Why average male height differs so much by country
Adult height reflects a mix of genetics and environment. Genetic differences between populations play a role, but so does the environment children grow up in — nutrition quality and consistency through childhood and adolescence, and access to healthcare that prevents or treats illnesses which can slow growth.
Countries near the top of this list, largely in Northern and Central Europe, have had decades of consistently strong nutrition and healthcare access across most of the population. Countries lower in the list have often seen more variation in food security or public health infrastructure, historically or currently, which shows up in population-level height figures. This article doesn’t go further than that — the standard explanations in the literature are genetics, nutrition and healthcare access, and nothing here claims a stronger or more specific cause than that.
The same three factors — genetics, nutrition and healthcare access — also explain most of the male-female gap seen within any single country on this list, on top of the underlying biological sex difference. Better nutrition and healthcare tend to raise both sexes’ average height together, without closing the gap between them.
The regional pattern in this dataset
Looking down the full 69-country list, a rough regional pattern emerges. Northern, Central and much of Southern Europe cluster near the top, generally averaging above 178cm. Many countries in South and Southeast Asia, along with parts of Central America, sit toward the bottom of this dataset, averaging below 170cm. The Americas, the Middle East and Africa span a wide middle range rather than clustering at either end.
This is a description of the 69 countries actually in this dataset, not a claim about every country in those regions — plenty of countries in each region aren’t included yet, and a regional label always hides country-to-country variation within it.
If you’re specifically interested in how female average height compares by country, the companion article on average height for women by country covers the same 69 countries using the same method.
How the ranking works
The table above ranks a country’s published mean male height against every other country in this dataset — position 1 is the tallest average, position 69 is the shortest. This is a ranking of national averages, not a ranking of individual people; a tall individual in a “short-average” country can easily be taller than a short individual in a “tall-average” one.
It’s also worth separating this from percentile. Ranking a country tells you where its average sits among other countries’ averages. It doesn’t tell you where a specific height sits within that country’s own population — for that, this site’s percentile calculator (built on WHO and CDC reference data) is the right tool, since it asks for age as well as height rather than comparing a single figure against a single country average.
Using this data sensibly
A national average is a single summary number for an entire population, so it necessarily hides a lot of real variation — by region within a country, by ethnic group, and across generations as a population’s average height rises or falls over time (a well-documented trend called the secular trend in height).
Treat the figures on this page as a starting point for comparison, not a precise benchmark for any one person. If you want to see your own height plotted against a specific country’s average, the calculator above does that directly, including how it ranks against every other country in the dataset.
It’s also worth remembering that average height for a country isn’t fixed forever. Average adult height has risen in many populations over the past century — sometimes described as the “secular trend” in height — as nutrition and healthcare access improved across generations. A figure taken from a 2019 cohort reflects people who grew up decades earlier, not necessarily the height trajectory of children being born today.
Method and sources
Source: NCD-RisC’s 2019 cohort data (mean height, age 19), as compiled by World Population Review and heightcomparisoncalculator.com — see the note above on why this is a secondary compilation rather than a direct NCD-RisC download. Coverage: 69 countries, a partial subset of NCD-RisC’s roughly 200-country dataset. Last reviewed 2026-09-19.
Ranks in the table above were calculated by sorting all 69 countries’ average male heights from tallest to shortest; “Rank (of 69)” gives each country’s position in that order. Where a country isn’t shown in the curated table, the calculator above covers the full 69-country list and its ranking.
Try the average height by country tool to rank your own height against any country in this dataset, or open the comparison board to see two national averages stood side by side.