Average Height by Country (Males >20 years)

Yao Ming, the 7-6 center from China boxes out 5-9 Nate RobinsonIf  basketball popularity coincided with the average height of the country’s population, then Scandinavia should have many more professional basketball players.

At least according to some data that was compiled by one of our forum members, tpraseri (see Average Height by Country thread).

Tpraseri compiled data from across the internet, listed out the average heights of 82 countries around the world. You can see the full list at the bottom of this post.

Netherlands the tallest country
At an average height of 5-foot-11 (181,0 cm), the Netherlands has the tallest average height amongst males twenty years old and older.

Holland was followed by #2 Iceland (5-10.8, 179,8), and then the three Scandinavian countries Norway (5-10.7, 179,7),  Sweden (5-10.6, 179,3), and Denmark (5-10.4, 178,8) rounded out the top five.

And who have these countries have produced?

The Netherlands has been decently successful with Rik Smits, Dan Gadzuric, Francisco Elson, Swen Nater, Geert Hammink, Henk Norel, and Serge Zwikker.

Sweden has the recently-drafted Jonas Jerebko, Iceland sent Petur Gudmundsson to the NBA in the 1980s and Jón Stefánsson, and Lars Hansen of Denmark.

And who would have assumed that #43 South Korea (5-7.3, 171,0) would, on average, be taller than #48 Portugal (5-7.1, 170,5), #56 Brazil (5-6.7, 169,5), #69 Mongolia (5-5.5, 166,4), and #75 Nigeria (5-5, 165,0),?

Asia has the shortest countries
Asia owned the six shortest countries on the list, mostly Southeast Asian countries.

The only country shorter than #81 Indonesia (161.5, 5’3.6) and the #80 Philippines (162.0, 5’3.8) was #82 Cambodia clocked in as the country with the shortest average height for males at just 160,3 (5’3.1″).

To see the full chart, see below:

Countries Height (cm) Height (in) Population
Netherlands 181,0 5’11.3″ 16,318,199
Iceland 179,8 5’10.8″ 319,355
Norway 179,7 5’10.7″ 4,737,171
Sweden 179,3 5’10.6″ 8,986,400
Denmark 178,8 5’10.4″ 5,413,392
Finland 178,4 5’10.2″ 5,214,512
Czech Republic 178,3 5’10.2″ 10,246,178
Slovenia 178,1 5’10.1″ 2,007,711
Luxembourg 178,0 5’10.1″ 486,006
Croatia 177,6 5’9.9″ 4,496,869
Germany 177,4 5’9.8″ 82,424,609
Estonia 177,1 5’9.7″ 1,307,605
Austria 177,0 5’9.7″ 8,174,762
Belgium 176,6 5’9.5″ 10,348,276
Serbia 176,5 5’9.5″ 10,159,046
Switzerland 176,5 5’9.5″ 7,450,867
United States 176,4 5’9.4″ 293,027,571
Australia 176,3 5’9.4″ 19,913,144
Poland 176,0 5’9.3″ 38,626,349
Greece 175,7 5’9.2″ 10,647,529
New Zealand 175,5 5’9.1″ 3,993,817
United Kingdom 175,4 5’9.1″ 60,270,708
Hungary 175,3 5’9″ 10,106,017
Ukraine 175,0 5’8.9″ 47,732,079
Ireland 175,0 5’8.9″ 3,969,558
Russia 175,0 5’8.9″ 143,782,338
Israel 175,0 5’8.9″ 7,112,359
Lithuania 175,0 5’8.9″ 3,565,205
Canada 174,3 5’8.6″ 32,507,874
Lebanon 174,2 5’8.6″ 3,777,218
Turkey 174,1 5’8.5″ 68,893,918
France 174,1 5’8.5″ 60,424,213
Uzbekistan 173,4 5’8.3″ 26,410,416
Italy 173,2 5’8.2″ 58,057,477
Senegal 173,0 5’8.1″ 10,852,147
Jamaica 172,8 5’8″ 2,804,332
Mali 172,5 5’7.9″ 12,324,029
Spain 172,0 5’7.7″ 40,280,780
Romania 172,0 5’7.7″ 22,355,551
Azerbaijan 172,0 5’7.7″ 8,177,717
Uruguay 171,8 5’7.6″ 3,399,237
Argentina 171,3 5’7.4″ 39,144,753
South Korea 171,0 5’7.3″ 48,598,175
Syria 171,0 5’7.3″ 18,016,874
Morocco 170,7 5’7.2″ 32,209,101
Iran 170,6 5’7.2″ 67,503,205
Portugal 170,5 5’7.1″ 10,524,145
Côte d’Ivoire 170,4 5’7.1″ 18,373,060
Egypt 170,3 5’7″ 76,117,421
Tunisia 170,3 5’7″ 9,974,722
Algeria 170,2 5’7″ 32,129,324
South Africa 170,0 5’6.9″ 42,718,530
Cameroon 170,0 5’6.9″ 16,063,678
Gambia 170,0 5’6.9″ 1,735,464
Ghana 169,8 5’6.9″ 23,382,848
Brazil 169,5 5’6.7″ 184,101,109
Colombia 169,5 5’6.7″ 42,310,775
Taiwan 169,3 5’6.7″ 22,920,946
Chile 169,2 5’6.6″ 15,823,957
Venezuela 169,0 5’6.5″ 23,542,649
Paraguay 169,0 5’6.5″ 6,191,368
Japan 168,6 5’6.4″ 127,333,002
Hong Kong 168,5 5’6.3″ 7,210,505
China 168,3 5’6.3″ 1,298,847,624
Mexico 167,5 5’5.9″ 104,959,594
Pakistan 167,0 5’5.7″ 159,196,336
Singapore 166,6 5’5.6″ 4,353,893
Thailand 166,4 5’5.5″ 64,865,523
Mongolia 166,4 5’5.5″ 2,751,314
Malaysia 166,0 5’5.4″ 23,522,482
Sri Lanka 166,0 5’5.4″ 20,064,776
Malawi 166,0 5’5.4″ 13,931,831
Bahrain 165,6 5’5.2″ 718,306
Iraq 165,4 5’5.1″ 25,374,691
Nigeria 165,0 5’5″ 138,283,240
Peru 164,3 5’4.7″ 27,544,305
North Korea 163,8 5’4.5″ 22,697,553
India 162,3 5’3.9″ 1,065,070,607
Vietnam 162,1 5’3.8″ 82,689,518
Philippines 162,0 5’3.8″ 86,241,697
Indonesia 161,5 5’3.6″ 238,452,952
Cambodia 160,3 5’3.1″ 13,363,421

* For the references used to compile this data, go here.

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Entry Posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 11:23 pm and is filed under Cambodia, China, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Korea, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, South Korea, Sweden, Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

19 Responses to “Average Height by Country (Males >20 years)

  1. become taller says:

    I

  2. how grow taller says:

    Thank you for writing valuable information regarding the topic. I am an admirer of your website. Keep up the good job.

  3. thenorthernchinese says:

    northern chinese 18-25 guys are 6’1 (185cm) tall in average. im 6’4 and im not towering over people in my high school

  4. Anonymous says:

    Thats true. I have a friend whos around 6 ft tall, and he has some chinese lineage. He said something about an ethnic group called Hoka or something. Not the tallest on earth, but quite tall. Im not sure whats up w/ my school. I live in a mostly dutch town in Iowa, and i stand a head and shoulders taller than most at 6’5.

  5. T says:

    data for Mongolian is for 14 year old highschool students. For 18-24 average is 179cm (2007) census.

  6. lolololol says:

    Canada = 5 ft 9 and a half for male between 25-50

  7. Yup I figured says:

    hmmm very intersting. White folks are the tallest… then blacks and the reason why south korea is tall for an Asian country(800 pound gorilla in the room). Is because their well feed for the past 60 years. Unlike there fesis throwing neighbors to the South.

  8. iulian says:

    Acces to food, it’s quality an the quality of life play a major factor in human hight.

    I’m Romanian. Look what happened the past 2 generations with improvement in life quality.

    Granfathers: 167cm, 168cm Granmothers: 151cm, 160cm Father: 172cm Mother: 160cm

    Me (23 y old): 180cm My cousins (22 – 28 y old): 1 shortest 175cm, all other 5: 180 – 186cm.

    New generations are much taller. Me at 180cm i’m very average.

  9. Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China - Page 2 says:

    [...] Originally Posted by CardSharp Height is also correlated with industrialization and nutrition so it's hard to say what is genetics and what is environment. I kinda doubt I'd be as tall if I stayed in China. The food here is not really that healthy but it's higher in protein than what I ate in China. I don't agree, China is industrialized but not developed, Japan is both industrialized and developed, both have similar heights, but the difference between Chinese/Japanese and Koreans is a statistically significant 25% of a standard deviation. This can be ascribed to genetic factors. I should learn more about statistics, then I can more quantitatively describe this phenomena. Average Height by Country (Males >20 years) | [...]

  10. India beefs up defence along China-India border says:

    [...] research: – InterBasket – International Basketball & Euroleague Forum China 171,8 India 164,5 Average Height by Country (Males >20 years) | China 168,3 India 162,3 How many Chinese women want to marry small, short, weak, low IQ, [...]

  11. Deegii says:

    Interesting. I’m Mongolian and my height is 168cm and I was shortest in university.

  12. Deegii says:

    maybe, mongolian avarege height posted here is not true

  13. Very Strange says:

    This is strange… very Strange. This census is really outdated. I have been to India, Japan and China. We were doing a height census in rural, and urban areas and found the following:

    India: Males (29>) – 178.817
    Young Males (16-28)- 182.887

    China: Males (29>) – 179.823
    Young Males (14-28)- 188.887

    Japan: Males (29>) – 178.721
    Young Males (16-28)- 185.751

    Is this info been given to us really uptodate? Us we did to the Census this is what we found.

  14. Isot says:

    This is not true at all. It all depends on the age of the sample. Most of asian countries including s.korea, japan and china are much less. The sample you have taken must be young generation only, and some other countries have way higher height that you represented here…

  15. Demetria says:

    The Vietnamese height is soooo right. If I calculate the average height of me and the other 3 people in my family I get roughly 5″3.5 … Sooo my family is actually below average! Haha

  16. behrad says:

    average heigh in iran is 5’8″ your chart is not very exactly but thank’s for chart

  17. gutarish says:

    This date is almost correct.
    The tallest European are Dutch(185cm)
    The tallest Asian are South Korean(175cm)
    The tallest African are Kenya

  18. natasha says:

    The info on Serbs is way off!! Average Serbian and Montenegrin (most of them are Dinaric type = very tall and bony) men’s height is 186.5cm and women’s 171cm. This makes Serbian men the tallest men in Europe. Statistics are not really necessary, you just need to stand and watch people pass by in downtown Belgrade and it will very soon become obvious that the average height of people is way above any other European country with the exception of Netherlands. Dutch men and women are also exceptionally tall, but I believe I saw statistics for men – 185cm and women – 174cm. So, this chart’s is drastically incorrect! Careful citing it anywhere!

  19. wikipediam says:

    in wikipedia statu people are way higher.lithuania avarage is fake.in our schools say even doctor says that average height is 181.im 16years old.my height is177 and im average in class.my height should be181.i’ve been in sweden 6months maybe.and have seen many asians enough to imagine their height.their average is atleast half of head less than our average.aveage heigjt on WORLD is 174 also the best and the most healthy height for human is 175- 180

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