The average height of an adult man worldwide is 5 feet 7.5 inches (171 cm). In the United States, men skew slightly taller at 5 feet 8.9 inches (175 cm), based on CDC measurements collected from 2021 to 2023. But averages only tell part of the story. Where you live, when you were born, and what you ate growing up all shape how tall you end up.
Average Male Height in the U.S.
The CDC’s most recent national survey puts the average American man at 68.9 inches, just under 5 feet 9. That figure comes from physically measured heights of men aged 20 and older, not self-reported data (people tend to round up by about half an inch when asked how tall they are).
If you’re curious where you fall relative to other American men, percentile data gives a clearer picture. A man at the 5th percentile stands about 5 feet 4.4 inches, meaning 95% of men are taller. The 50th percentile, the true midpoint, is 5 feet 9.1 inches. And a man at the 95th percentile reaches 6 feet 2 inches. Most American men fall somewhere between 5 feet 5 and 6 feet 2, with a fairly even spread across that range. Being 6 feet tall puts you well above average but isn’t especially rare.
How Height Varies Around the World
The global range is wider than most people expect. The Netherlands tops the list, where the average 19-year-old man stands 183.8 cm (about 6 feet 0.4 inches). Montenegro and Estonia follow closely at 183.3 cm and 182.8 cm. Several other Northern European countries, including Belgium, Latvia, and Denmark, see averages above 181 cm.
At the other end of the spectrum, men in Timor-Leste average just 160.1 cm (5 feet 3 inches), with Laos and the Solomon Islands not far behind at around 162 to 163 cm. That’s a gap of nearly 24 cm, or about 9.4 inches, between the tallest and shortest national averages. This gap has actually grown over the past century. A hundred years ago, the difference between the tallest and shortest countries was around 19 to 20 cm for men.
Genetics vs. Nutrition
About 80 to 90 percent of the variation in height comes down to genetics. If both your parents are tall, the odds are strongly in your favor. Researchers have identified thousands of genetic variants that each contribute a tiny amount to final height, and the cumulative effect is substantial.
The remaining 10 to 20 percent is environmental, and childhood nutrition is the biggest piece. Protein intake, calcium, vitamin D, and overall caloric sufficiency during the growth years all matter. This is why average heights have increased so dramatically in countries that experienced rapid economic development. Iranian men, for example, gained an average of 16.5 cm (about 6.5 inches) over the course of a century, and South Korean men gained 15.2 cm. Those gains happened far too quickly to be genetic. They reflect improved diets, better healthcare during childhood, and reduced rates of infectious disease that can stunt growth.
Illness during childhood plays an underappreciated role. Repeated infections, especially gastrointestinal diseases, can divert calories away from growth. This is one reason height differences between wealthy and poor nations are as much about sanitation infrastructure as food supply.
How Much Taller Have Men Gotten?
The upward trend in height over the past century has been dramatic in some parts of the world and nearly flat in others. The largest gains appeared in East Asia and parts of the Middle East, where modernization happened rapidly. South Korean men born in 1996 are more than 15 cm taller than those born in 1896.
In contrast, height gains in Sub-Saharan Africa have been modest, and in some countries, average height has actually stagnated or declined during periods of economic hardship. The result is that the global height gap between the tallest and shortest populations has widened for men, from about 19 cm a century ago to 22 or 23 cm today. Getting taller, in other words, has not been a universal experience.
Your Height Changes Throughout the Day
You’re not quite the same height when you go to bed as when you wake up. The discs between your vertebrae compress under gravity throughout the day, and research shows men lose an average of about 7 mm (roughly a quarter inch) over the course of seven hours. You’re tallest first thing in the morning after lying flat overnight, which allows the discs to rehydrate and expand. This is worth knowing if you’re being measured for something specific: a morning measurement and an evening one can give slightly different results.
What Counts as “Tall” or “Short”
Height exists on a bell curve, so the boundaries of “normal” are wide. In the U.S., roughly 90% of men fall between 5 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 2 inches. Being outside that range isn’t necessarily a medical concern. Doctors typically investigate height only when someone falls far below the expected range for their family background, or when growth patterns in children deviate sharply from established curves.
Context matters more than a single number. A man who is 5 feet 6 inches is shorter than the American average but right at the global mean. A man who is 5 feet 10 inches in the Netherlands would be considered below average there, despite being taller than most men worldwide. Average height is always relative to the population you’re comparing against.