5’8” (172.7cm) is a little below average for an adult man. Against the CDC/NHANES US reference, it sits at roughly the 37th percentile — taller than about 37% of adult men, shorter than the rest. It’s a modest gap, not an unusual one: 5’8” is well inside the ordinary range for adult male height.
How 5’8” compares
| Measure | Height | Difference from 5’8” |
|---|---|---|
| 5’8” (this article) | 172.7cm | — |
| US adult male average | 176.9cm | +4.2cm taller |
| UK adult male average | 178.21cm | +5.5cm taller |
| 69-country dataset average | 174.9cm | +2.2cm taller |
| US percentile (CDC/NHANES) | 37th | 63% of US men are taller |
The 69-country figure is a simple, unweighted average across the 69 countries in this site’s dataset — a useful rough benchmark, but not a population-weighted “world average”, since the subset leans European.
| Name | Height |
|---|---|
| 5'8" man | 172.7 cm |
| US average man | 176.9 cm |
| UK average man | 178.2 cm |
Try the calculator below with your own age and reference population, pre-filled to this exact case.
This reference covers ages 2-20; using the nearest available data point for age 30.
Percentile
37th
At 172.7 cm and age 30, you are taller than approximately 37% of the CDC reference population for your sex.
z-score -0.33
What “37th percentile” actually means
A percentile is a ranking, not a judgement. Landing at the 37th percentile for height means that, in a reference population of adult men matched by sex, roughly 37 in every 100 are the same height or shorter than 172.7cm. The remaining 63 are taller.
This is a statistical description, not a verdict. Percentile rankings shift constantly with age, ethnicity mix and which country’s data you use as the reference, so a single number like “37th percentile” only ever describes one comparison at a time — in this case, against the CDC/NHANES adult sample.
It also isn’t the same as “average.” Average height is a single point (176.9cm in the US); percentile tells you where a specific height falls relative to the whole spread of the population, not just the midpoint.
Why the answer depends on which country you pick
Height varies by population for a mix of genetic and environmental reasons, including nutrition and public health across childhood. That means “is 5’8” tall” doesn’t have one universal answer — it depends on the reference group.
Against the US average (176.9cm), 5’8” is about 4.2cm short. Against the UK average (178.21cm), the gap widens to 5.5cm. Against the simple 69-country dataset average (174.9cm) used on this site, the gap narrows to 2.2cm. None of these is “more correct” than another; they’re just different comparisons.
This is also why the percentile calculator lets you switch between the WHO and CDC references. If you’re comparing yourself to a specific national population, use the reference and country figures that match it rather than a single global rule of thumb.
Is 5’8” unusual for a man?
No. A 37th-percentile height is common — more than a third of adult men in the CDC/NHANES sample are this height or shorter. Adult male height in most populations clusters in a fairly narrow band, roughly 5’6” to 5’11” for the bulk of the distribution, with the tails extending further in both directions.
Being below average by a few centimetres doesn’t place someone in an unusual bracket; it places them in the lower-middle of an ordinary, continuous range. There’s nothing in the data here that marks 5’8” as short in any meaningful statistical sense — it’s simply on the shorter side of average.
Height distributions follow a roughly bell-shaped curve, with most people clustered near the median and progressively fewer towards each tail. That shape is also why moving a few centimetres near the average shifts your percentile more sharply than moving the same distance out towards the extremes — the middle of the curve is where height is most tightly packed.
What shapes adult height
Adult height comes from a mix of genetic inheritance and childhood environment. Genetics sets a range of potential heights; factors such as nutrition, general health and healthcare access during childhood and adolescence influence where within that range someone ends up.
This is part of why average height differs between countries and has shifted over generations within the same country, as living standards, diet and healthcare have changed. None of this makes any individual height, including 5’8”, a reflection of anything other than a mix of inherited and environmental factors that are largely outside a person’s control.
Measuring your height accurately
If you’re checking your own height against these figures, small measurement errors can shift the result. Stand fully upright without shoes, heels and shoulder blades against a flat wall, and use a rigid flat object (not a tape measure alone) to mark the top of your head against a wall-mounted ruler or tape.
Height also varies slightly across the day, typically reading a touch taller in the morning than in the evening, because the spine compresses gradually while standing or sitting. For the most consistent comparison against reference data like the figures above, measure at roughly the same time of day each time.
WHO or CDC: which reference should you use?
This site’s percentile calculator offers two reference systems. WHO 2007 is built to serve as an international reference, covering ages 5-19. CDC/NHANES is built from a US population sample and includes an adult (20+) point, which is what this article uses throughout.
Neither reference is objectively “correct” — they’re built from different underlying populations for different purposes. If you’re comparing yourself specifically to other adults in the US, CDC is the closer match; for a broader international comparison, WHO is the more common international field standard, even though its adult coverage is more limited than CDC’s.
A ranking, not a judgement
None of the figures on this page say anything about health, ability or anything else beyond where a specific height sits in a measured population. Percentile is a purely descriptive statistic, and this site treats every height, in every percentile band, as equally unremarkable — because statistically, that’s exactly what they are.
How this figure was calculated
The percentile for 5’8” (172.7cm) was calculated using the LMS method against the CDC/NHANES adult (20+) reference point for men: M (median) = 175.1cm, S (coefficient of variation) = 0.041064, L = 1. The z-score works out to z ≈ -0.331, which converts to the 37.0th percentile via the standard normal distribution.
The CDC/NHANES adult figure is a single aggregate for everyone aged 20 and over, not broken out by decade — see the percentile tool’s own “Method and sources” section for the full data-provenance notes, including why this uses the 2011-2014 NHANES table rather than the original 2000 CDC growth chart constants.
Country averages (US, UK, and the 69-country dataset) come from this site’s country dataset, itself compiled from NCD-RisC’s 2019 cohort figures (age 19). See the country average tool for the full list and its own sourcing notes.
Because the CDC/NHANES adult S value here is estimated from published percentile columns rather than an official LMS fit, treat the 37th-percentile figure as a close approximation rather than an exact match to any single authoritative table. The underlying position — a little below average, comfortably within the ordinary range — holds regardless of the small margin of approximation involved.
Try the full percentile calculator to check your own height and age against the WHO or CDC reference, or open the comparison board to see 5’8” stood next to any other height, person or object you choose.
See also: is 5’10” tall for a man?