The average American woman stands 5 feet 3.5 inches tall (63.5 inches, or about 161 cm), based on CDC measurements collected from 2021 to 2023. Globally, women’s average height varies by roughly 10 to 11 centimeters depending on the region, with European and Central Asian women generally being the tallest.
Average Female Height in the United States
The CDC’s most recent anthropometric data, drawn from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey covering August 2021 through August 2023, puts the measured average height for U.S. women aged 20 and older at 63.5 inches. That’s just a hair under 5 foot 4, which has been a remarkably stable number for American women over the past few decades.
This is a measured average, not self-reported, which matters. People tend to round up when asked how tall they are. The CDC figure comes from physical examinations of a nationally representative sample, making it one of the most reliable height statistics available for any country.
How Height Varies Around the World
Where you live tells you a lot about how your height compares. European and Central Asian women tend to be the tallest in the world. Women in the Netherlands, for example, average around 5 foot 7, while women in countries like Guatemala and the Philippines average closer to 4 foot 11 or 5 feet even. That roughly 10 to 11 centimeter gap between the tallest and shortest regions has stayed fairly consistent over the past century, meaning the global spread in women’s height hasn’t changed dramatically even as overall averages have climbed.
Interestingly, the variation in female height across regions is smaller than it is for men. Male heights diverge more sharply between wealthy and lower-income countries, while women’s heights remain a bit more clustered globally.
Women Have Gotten Significantly Taller
Over the past 100 years, the global mean height for both men and women has increased by about 10 centimeters. The most dramatic gain belongs to South Korean women, who grew an average of 20.2 cm taller over a century. That’s nearly 8 inches in just a few generations. Large gains also occurred in Japan, Greece, Serbia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
European and Central Asian women saw the biggest regional increases, eventually overtaking North American women as the tallest female populations. Meanwhile, countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia saw relatively little height gain over the same period, reflecting persistent challenges with childhood nutrition, disease burden, and healthcare access during critical growth years.
What Determines How Tall You Are
Genetics accounts for roughly 80 to 90 percent of your adult height. If your parents are tall, you’re very likely to be tall. Researchers have identified thousands of genetic variants that each contribute small amounts to final height, and together they explain the strong family resemblance most people notice.
The remaining 10 to 20 percent comes from environmental factors, particularly during childhood and adolescence. Nutrition is the biggest one. Children who get adequate protein, calcium, and micronutrients during their growth years tend to reach their full genetic potential, while chronic malnutrition or repeated infections during childhood can stunt growth permanently. This is exactly why average heights have climbed so dramatically in countries that experienced rapid economic development: the genetics didn’t change, but the food supply and healthcare did.
Height Loss With Age
Your adult height stays relatively stable from your early 20s until about age 40. After that, you start losing height gradually. Data from a long-running UK birth cohort study found that between the ages of 36 and 69, women lost an average of 2.4 cm (just under an inch), slightly more than the 2.0 cm men lost over the same period.
This shrinkage comes primarily from the spinal discs compressing over time, along with changes in posture and, in some cases, vertebral fractures related to osteoporosis. Women are more susceptible to osteoporosis after menopause due to declining estrogen levels, which is one reason they tend to lose slightly more height than men. Losing more than about 2 inches from your peak adult height can be a sign of significant bone density loss and is worth bringing up at a checkup.
Height and Long-Term Health
Taller height is often associated with better childhood conditions, but when it comes to longevity, the relationship flips in a surprising direction. Research based on millions of death records has found a negative correlation between greater height and lifespan. Shorter, smaller-bodied people tend to have lower death rates and fewer diet-related chronic diseases, particularly after middle age.
Some researchers have even proposed that the well-known longevity gap between men and women may be partially explained by their height difference. Men average about 8 percent taller than women and have a roughly 8 percent lower life expectancy at birth. Animal studies support this pattern too: within the same species, smaller individuals generally outlive larger ones. The mechanisms likely involve differences in cell growth rates and metabolic demands, though this remains an active area of investigation.
None of this means being tall is unhealthy. Height is linked to lower rates of heart disease and higher socioeconomic outcomes in many studies. The longevity data simply suggests that when it comes to aging and chronic disease risk past middle age, being shorter may carry a small biological advantage.