Height Calculator

How do you convert centimetres to feet and inches?

Divide the centimetres by 2.54 to get total inches, then divide by 12 for whole feet and keep the remainder as inches. So 175 cm is 68.9 inches, which is 5 feet with 8.9 inches remaining — 5'9" rounded.

How do you convert feet and inches to centimetres?

Multiply the feet by 12, add the inches, then multiply the total by 2.54. For 5'10": (5 × 12) + 10 = 70 inches, and 70 × 2.54 = 177.8 cm. Converting the feet and inches separately and adding is a common source of error.

How tall is 180 cm in feet?

About 5 feet 11 inches — 180 ÷ 2.54 gives 70.87 inches, which is 5'10.9". It is often rounded to 5'11", and 180 cm sits just under 6 foot, which is 182.88 cm.

How many centimetres is 6 foot?

Exactly 182.88 cm, since 72 inches × 2.54 = 182.88. Most sources round to 183, so strictly speaking someone who is 183 cm is a few millimetres over 6 foot.

Is one inch exactly 2.54 cm?

Yes, exactly. The international yard and pound agreement of 1959 defined the inch as precisely 2.54 centimetres, which makes every height conversion exact rather than approximate. Using 2.5 introduces about a 3 cm error on an adult height.

What is the average height in Australia?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey measures adult men at about 175.6 cm (5'9") and women at about 161.8 cm (5'4"). Younger adults average slightly taller than older ones, mostly because average height rose across the twentieth century.

Why are younger Australians taller on average?

Two reasons that often get confused. Average height genuinely rose through the twentieth century as childhood nutrition and health improved, so younger cohorts are taller. Separately, individuals lose two to four centimetres over adult life as spinal discs compress, which lowers the averages for older age groups further.

How does the child height estimate work?

It uses the mid-parental method: average the two parents' heights, then add 13 cm for a boy or subtract 13 cm for a girl. The 13 cm reflects the average adult height difference between the sexes. It is a rough estimate from two numbers, not a medical assessment.

How accurate is a child height predictor?

Not very, and the range shown is the honest measure of that. A prediction carries roughly ±8.5 cm to cover 95% of outcomes — a 17 cm spread — and one child in twenty still falls outside it. It cannot account for nutrition, illness, puberty timing or genetic variation the parents' heights do not capture.

Can you actually predict adult height?

Only approximately. Bone age imaging combined with current height and growth history gives a better estimate than parental heights alone, and that is a clinical assessment rather than something a website can do. Repeated measurement plotted on a growth chart is far more informative than any single prediction.

When does height stop increasing?

Typically around 16 for girls and 18 for boys, when the growth plates in the long bones close, though some people gain a little into their early twenties. Growth after that point does not happen, which is why anything sold as increasing adult height does not work.

How much of height is genetic?

Roughly 80% of the variation between individuals in well-nourished populations is inherited, spread across hundreds of genes each contributing a small amount. The remainder is largely childhood nutrition and health. This is why tall parents usually have tall children but not always.

Can nutrition affect height?

During childhood, yes. Adequate protein, energy and micronutrients are needed for a child to reach their genetic potential, and sustained deficiency limits final height. The relationship is one-directional though — eating more than enough does not produce extra height, it just produces extra weight.

Can anything increase adult height?

No. Once growth plates close, bone does not lengthen, and stretching, supplements, posture devices and similar products cannot change that. Good posture helps you stand at your full actual height rather than below it, which is the entire effect available. If short stature is a medical concern, that is a conversation for a GP during the growing years.

What is a height percentile?

Where a measurement sits among children of the same age and sex. The 50th percentile is exactly average; the 25th means taller than a quarter of peers. Anywhere between roughly the 3rd and 97th is within the normal range — percentiles describe position, not quality.

Should I worry if my child is on a low percentile?

Usually not, if they have been there consistently — some children are simply shorter. What matters more is the trend: a child who has dropped across percentile lines over a year or two is the situation worth raising with a GP. If you are worried either way, ask; growth problems are generally treatable and earlier is better.

How is height measured properly?

Shoes off, heels together with heels, bottom and shoulders against a wall, chin level and eyes forward, with a flat object laid across the top of the head. Measure at a consistent time of day, since spinal compression makes most people one to two centimetres shorter by evening.

Am I really taller in the morning?

Yes, usually by one to two centimetres. Spinal discs compress under the day's load and re-expand overnight. Clinics measure at consistent times because of it, and it accounts for most small differences between two measurements of the same person.

Why is 5'12" wrong?

Because twelve inches is a foot, so it should be written 6'0". It appears when a conversion rounds the inch remainder up to 12 without carrying into the feet — a genuine bug in a lot of height converters, and one this page previously had.

Do men and women differ in height?

On average yes, by about 13 cm in Australia — 175.6 cm against 161.8 cm. The difference emerges during puberty, largely through its timing and the hormones involved. The distributions overlap substantially, so plenty of individual women are taller than plenty of individual men.

Why does self-reported height differ from measured?

People tend to overstate their height, men rather more than women, and often by a couple of centimetres. This is why measured survey data such as the ABS National Health Survey reads lower than figures gathered by asking, and why the two should not be compared directly.

Which country has the tallest people?

The Netherlands, where adult men average close to 184 cm and women about 170 cm. Denmark, Norway, Germany and Sweden follow closely. The Dutch were among Europe’s shorter populations in the 1800s and gained more than 20 cm in a century, which is far too fast to be genetic — nutrition and childhood healthcare are the usual explanation.

Why has average height stopped increasing?

Because in wealthy countries the limiting factor is no longer environmental. Australian average height rose about eight centimetres between 1900 and 1980 as childhood nutrition and health improved, then flattened once those were good enough. Populations still gaining height are generally those whose childhood conditions are still improving.

Can I work out my height percentile?

For an adult, yes — the calculator above compares a height against Australian averages using a normal distribution, which fits adult height well. For a child it is not possible this way: growth charts use age-specific reference data that cannot be approximated from a mean and standard deviation, so a GP growth chart is the right tool.

Does height affect BMI?

Directly — BMI is weight divided by height in metres squared, so a small height error changes the result noticeably. Getting height right matters if you are calculating it. Our BMI calculator handles that, and it has well-known limitations of its own for very muscular or very tall people.