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How big is a Human?

1.7 meters!

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Human

Humans are the species Homo sapiens. The explorer shows a person 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall, measured standing, from the floor to the top of the head. That height falls between the average heights of adult women and adult men in the United States.

Size

A person's size is usually given as standing height. The US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey measures it with a stadiometer, a measuring rod fixed to a wall, to the nearest millimeter. From August 2021 to August 2023, it found an average height of 175.1 centimeters (5 feet 9 inches) for men aged 20 and older. Women averaged 161.2 centimeters (5 feet 3 inches).

People vary widely around those averages. In the same survey, 90 percent of men measured 162–187 centimeters, and 90 percent of women measured 150–173 centimeters.

Average height also differs between countries. A 2016 study, which pooled height measurements of more than 18.6 million people, found that among people born in 1996, Dutch men were the tallest, averaging 182.5 centimeters (6 feet). Men in Timor-Leste, Yemen and Laos were the shortest, at about 160 centimeters (5 feet 3 inches). Among women, the shortest averages were in Guatemala, at 149.4 centimeters (4 feet 11 inches), and the tallest were above 168 centimeters (5 feet 6 inches), in Latvia, the Netherlands, Estonia and the Czech Republic.

Size comparisons

  • A person 1.7 meters tall is about 1.7 times as tall as a dodo, which stood about 1 meter tall.
  • About seven basketballs stacked on top of each other would reach a 1.7-meter person's height.
  • About 5,200 people 1.7 meters tall, stacked head to foot, would reach the top of Mount Everest, 8,849 meters (29,032 feet) above sea level.
  • About 7.5 million people lying head to foot would stretch across Earth, which is 12,742 kilometers (7,918 miles) across.

Why people differ in height

Height runs strongly in families. Scientists estimate that about 80 percent of a person's height is determined by the DNA variations they inherit, and more than 700 of these variations have been found. Some affect the growth plates, areas in the long bones of the arms and legs where new bone forms as a child grows.

The rest depends on how a person grows up, including their mother's nutrition during pregnancy and their own diet and health in childhood. Scientists think that most of the differences in average height between countries come from these conditions, not from genes.

A century of growth

The 2016 study compared people born in 1896 with people born a century later. South Korean women and Iranian men gained the most height, 20.2 centimeters (8 inches) and 16.5 centimeters (6.5 inches). Heights changed little over the century in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The United States was one of the tallest nations a century ago but has since fallen behind many European countries.

The tallest people on record

As of 2026, Guinness World Records lists Robert Wadlow of Alton, Illinois, as the tallest man for whom there is firm evidence. When last measured, on June 27, 1940, he was 2.72 meters (8 feet 11 inches) tall, 1.6 times the height of a 1.7-meter person. It lists the tallest living man as Sultan Kösen of Türkiye, measured at 2.51 meters (8 feet 3 inches) in 2011.

Sources

Scale of the Universe > Human
Dodo Bird
The dodo bird went extinct sometime during the 1600s. The name comes from the sound they make (or should I say used to make since they're now extinct). So yeah, they're gone.
Giant Earthworm
The giant earthworm can grow up to three meters long. When baby giant earthworms hatch from their cocoons, they are only twenty centimeters long. They take five years to reach their full length. They burrow underground and make gurgling noises.
Rafflesia
The Rafflesia is the largest single flower in the world. It can weigh up to 10 kilograms, which is actually pretty heavy. The flower smells like rotting flesh to attract flies, which will pollinate it.
Sunflower
Did you know that the "flower" of a sunflower is not a single flower, but actually a flower head made up of thousands of small flowers? These small flowers are called florets. The florets in the center become sunflower seeds, which are currently invisible at this scale.
FM Radio Wavelength
F and M are the sixth and thirteenth letters of the alphabet. Six is a perfect number, while thirteen is not. We all have our differences, and we have to learn to accept them. That's the only way we'll live in harmony.
Wandering Albatross
The Wandering Albatross is the bird with the largest wingspan! They fly almost all the time, only stopping to eat and make babies. Their population is slowly decreasing. Now it is only at 26,000, which isn't very much.

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