If  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).

Member 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:

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

+ Lightest Players in NBA History