The tallest people in the world come from the Netherlands and a cluster of countries in Northern Europe and the Western Balkans. Dutch men average about 183.8 cm (just over 6 feet) and Dutch women about 170.4 cm (5 feet 7 inches), making them the tallest national population on Earth. But the full picture is more interesting than a single country topping the list. A belt of unusually tall people stretches from Scandinavia through the Baltic states and down into the mountainous Balkans, and the reasons behind it involve genetics, nutrition, childhood health, and a century of rising living standards.
The Top 10 Tallest Countries
Based on 2019 estimates for 19-year-olds, the tallest men come from the Netherlands (183.8 cm), Montenegro (183.3 cm), Estonia (182.8 cm), Bosnia and Herzegovina (182.5 cm), Iceland (182.1 cm), Denmark (181.9 cm), Czech Republic (181.2 cm), Latvia (181.2 cm), Slovakia (181.0 cm), and Slovenia (181.0 cm). For women, the ranking shifts slightly: the Netherlands still leads at 170.4 cm, followed by Montenegro, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Cook Islands, and Slovenia.
Two geographic clusters dominate these lists. One is the expected Nordic and Northern European group: the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, and the Baltic states. The other is a less well-known zone in the Western Balkans, where Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina consistently appear near the very top.
The Dinaric Alps: Europe’s Hidden Giant Zone
One of the more surprising findings in recent height research is that the tallest people in Europe may not be in Amsterdam but along the Adriatic coast. A 2022 study in the journal Biology mapped height data across the Western Balkans and found a continuous belt of extraordinary stature, with averages above 184 cm for young men, stretching from Dalmatia (coastal Croatia) through Herzegovina into central Montenegro. Young men from Dalmatia averaged 183.7 cm, those from Herzegovina 183.4 cm, and Montenegrins 182.9 cm. At age 18, Montenegrin men were actually measured as taller than their Dutch peers of the same age.
What makes this region unusual is that its height can’t be explained by the factors that typically drive tall populations. The Western Balkans are not among Europe’s wealthiest countries. Their diets, while adequate, are not notably richer than those of neighboring regions. The researchers concluded that the most probable explanation is genetic: specifically, a high frequency of a Y-chromosome lineage called I-M170 that appears to be linked to greater stature. This lineage likely became concentrated in the region through a founder effect, where a small ancestral population with tall-favoring genes expanded and passed those genes on at unusually high rates.
Africa’s Tallest Ethnic Groups
National averages can obscure the fact that some of the tallest people on the planet belong to specific ethnic groups in regions where overall averages are much lower. The Dinka of South Sudan and the Tutsi of Rwanda are the tallest groups in Africa. Measurements of Dinka men taken in the 1950s recorded averages of 181.3 to 182.6 cm, comparable to modern Dutch and Montenegrin averages.
Those numbers have since dropped. A survey of Dinka men published in 1995, drawn from war refugees in Ethiopia, found a mean height of just 176.4 cm, a decline of roughly 5 to 6 cm. The likely cause is decades of conflict, displacement, and undernutrition. This is a stark example of how environmental hardship can suppress genetic height potential within a single generation.
Why Genetics Matters More Than You Think
Twin and family studies estimate that between 30% and 90% of the variation in human height is determined by genetics, with most estimates landing toward the upper end of that range. In well-nourished populations where food, healthcare, and sanitation are adequate, genetics explains the vast majority of who ends up tall and who doesn’t. Hundreds of genetic variants each contribute a small amount to final height, and certain populations carry combinations of these variants that push their averages higher.
That said, genetics sets a ceiling, not a guarantee. A person or population with strong genetic potential for height will still fall short of it if childhood nutrition is poor, disease burden is high, or living conditions are harsh. This is why the same ethnic group can show dramatically different average heights depending on where and when they’re measured.
How Childhood Health Shapes Adult Height
One of the strongest predictors of a population’s average adult height is not income or diet specifically, but something more fundamental: how many infants survive their first year. Research across 12 countries spanning the United States and Europe found that postneonatal mortality (deaths between ages one month and one year) explains 62% of the variation in average adult height. The correlation is strong and negative: as infant mortality drops, adult height rises.
The math is striking. A reduction of 20 deaths per thousand in infant mortality was associated with an increase in average adult height of 3.2 cm. Pneumonia in infancy turned out to be the single most consistent predictor. Children who survive serious illness in their first year often divert energy from growth to immune response, and at a population level, high rates of infant disease drag average height down. Once researchers accounted for infant mortality, national income in the year of birth added no further predictive power. In other words, it’s not wealth itself that makes people taller. It’s the healthcare, sanitation, and nutrition that wealth tends to provide during the critical early years of life.
This explains a pattern visible across Europe over the past century. In wealthier northern countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, infant mortality fell early and then flattened, and average heights rose and then plateaued. In southern countries like Greece, Spain, and Portugal, infant mortality kept falling later into the 20th century, and heights kept rising to match, gradually closing the gap with the north.
The Biggest Height Gains in the Last Century
The countries that have grown tallest over the past 100 years are not the ones that are tallest today. The largest gain in adult height since the late 1800s belongs to South Korean women, who grew by an extraordinary 20.2 cm over the century, moving from the fifth shortest female population in the world to the top third. Iranian men gained 16.5 cm over the same period, the largest increase for males. South Korean men also gained substantially, adding about 15.2 cm.
Japan, Greece, Serbia, Poland, and several other countries in Southern and Central Europe saw large gains as well. These increases reflect rapid improvements in nutrition, public health, and economic development during the 20th century. Meanwhile, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia saw little change in average height over the same period, reflecting persistent poverty, food insecurity, and disease burden.
Are the Tallest Populations Still Getting Taller?
Even in the Nordic countries, which already rank among the tallest in the world, heights have not fully plateaued. Research tracking people born from the 1950s through the 1990s found that adult height continued to increase across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Norwegian men gained the most at about 15 mm per decade, while women in Denmark gained about 7 mm per decade. These gains came from more growth during childhood, paired with earlier timing of puberty.
The Netherlands, however, may be approaching a limit. According to Statistics Netherlands, 19-year-old Dutch men born in 2001 measured 182.9 cm on average, and women of the same age measured 169.3 cm. These figures are slightly below the modeled estimates of 183.8 cm and 170.4 cm that appear in global rankings, suggesting that the Dutch growth trend may be leveling off or that self-reported heights in surveys run slightly lower than measured data. Either way, the Dutch remain at or near the top globally, but the era of rapid height gains in Northern Europe appears to be slowing.
What Separates the Tallest From the Rest
The pattern across all the tallest populations is remarkably consistent. They share some combination of genetic variants that favor height, low rates of childhood disease, adequate nutrition during the first few years of life, and several generations of economic stability. No single factor is sufficient on its own. The Dinka demonstrate that strong genetic potential can be undermined by conflict and malnutrition. The rapid gains in South Korea and Iran show that improved living conditions can unlock height potential that was always there genetically but never fully expressed. And the Dinaric Alps reveal that even without exceptional wealth, the right genetic profile can produce some of the tallest people on the planet.