Timor-Leste (East Timor) has the shortest average height of any country in the world. The overall average across men and women is roughly 155 to 156 cm, or about 5 feet 1 inch. Men in Timor-Leste average around 160 cm (5 feet 3 inches), while women average about 153 cm (just over 5 feet).
The 10 Shortest Countries by Average Height
The countries with the shortest populations cluster heavily in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and parts of Central America and Africa. Here are the ten shortest, ranked by combined male and female averages:
- Timor-Leste: ~155–156 cm (5 ft 1 in)
- Laos: ~156–158 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Madagascar: ~156 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Guatemala: ~156–158 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Philippines: ~156 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Nepal: ~157–158 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Yemen: ~157 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Bangladesh: ~157–159 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Cambodia: ~158 cm (5 ft 2 in)
- Solomon Islands: ~159–160 cm (5 ft 3 in)
The differences between many of these countries are tiny, often less than a centimeter, so rankings can shift slightly depending on which dataset you use. What’s consistent across sources is that Timor-Leste sits at the bottom and the same cluster of nations appears in the bottom ten.
How the Shortest Compares to the Tallest
The gap between the world’s shortest and tallest populations is striking. Men in Timor-Leste average around 159 to 160 cm. Men in the Netherlands and several other Northern European countries average about 180 to 181 cm. That’s a difference of roughly 22 cm, or nearly 9 inches, between the two extremes.
This gap has actually grown over time. A century ago, the difference between the shortest and tallest countries was about 18 to 19 cm. It widened by about 4 cm because taller countries kept getting taller through better nutrition and healthcare, while the shortest countries saw much smaller gains.
Why Some Countries Are Shorter
Height is shaped by both genetics and environment, but the differences between the shortest and tallest nations are driven more by environmental factors than most people realize. Nutrition during childhood and adolescence is the single biggest lever. Chronic malnutrition, frequent childhood infections, and limited access to protein-rich foods all stunt growth during the critical years when the body is building bone.
Timor-Leste is one of the youngest nations on earth, having gained independence in 2002 after decades of conflict and occupation. Widespread poverty and food insecurity during those years left a lasting mark on population height. The same pattern holds for many other countries on the list. Guatemala, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Yemen all have high rates of childhood malnutrition and stunting.
Genetics do play a role. Researchers have identified hundreds of genetic markers linked to height variation within populations, involving pathways related to growth hormone signaling, bone development, and cell growth. Southeast Asian and Indigenous Central American populations do tend to carry genetic variants associated with shorter stature. But genetics alone don’t explain why countries like Japan and South Korea, which were among the shortest populations a century ago, now have averages 10 to 15 cm taller than countries like Bangladesh and Timor-Leste. That transformation happened through dramatic improvements in diet and public health, not genetic change.
How Heights Have Changed Over a Century
In the late 1800s, the shortest populations were in Asia and Central and Andean Latin America. Men born in 1896 in Laos averaged only about 153 cm, equivalent to the height of a well-nourished 12-year-old boy by today’s growth standards. Women born that same year in Guatemala averaged just 140 cm, the height of a healthy 10-year-old girl today.
Since then, the picture has shifted dramatically in some regions but barely moved in others. East Asian countries like Japan and South Korea experienced enormous height gains as their economies developed. South Asian countries like Bangladesh and India saw some improvement but plateaued at levels still 5 to 10 cm shorter than their East Asian neighbors. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, heights actually decreased for people born after the early 1960s, dropping by as much as 5 cm from their peak in countries like Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
This uneven progress is why the global height gap has widened rather than narrowed. Countries that invested heavily in childhood nutrition, sanitation, and healthcare grew taller. Countries dealing with persistent poverty, conflict, or food crises did not.
Where the Data Comes From
Most global height rankings draw on data compiled by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, a network of researchers who pooled over 2,000 population-based studies covering 65 million participants across 200 countries. Their most recent comprehensive analysis, published in The Lancet, tracks height trends from 1985 to 2019. Because large-scale height surveys aren’t conducted every year, rankings reflect the best available data rather than real-time measurements. The countries at the top and bottom of the list remain stable across different sources, even when exact numbers vary by a centimeter or two depending on the dataset and year.