Adult Height Percentile Calculator

Find what percentage of U.S. men or women are shorter or taller than a given height, or the height at any percentile, from CDC adult measurements.

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Calculator Functions

The calculator compares an adult height with measured U.S. adults: it gives the percentile, the share of men or women who are shorter or at least as tall, and how rare that height is. It can also work backward from a percentile to a height. Select a function to open it in the calculator.

Function	Use it when	You enter
Height percentile	You want to know what percentage of men or women are shorter or taller than a height	Height in feet and inches or centimeters
Height at a percentile	You want the height of, say, the tallest 10% of men	Percentile

Both functions compare with men or women, and with all adults aged 20 and over or one age group from 20–29 to 80 and over. Leaving inches blank counts as 0.

Height Percentile Formulas

CDC publishes the height at the 5th, 10th, 15th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 85th, 90th and 95th percentiles for each sex and age group [1]. Each of those percentiles has a fixed z value, such as 1.2816 for the 90th. The calculator finds the two published heights on either side of yours and reads z between them:

Here h is your height in centimeters, h_i and h_i+1 are the published heights just below and above it, and z_i and z_i+1 are their z values, so r is how fast z rises per centimeter between them.

Height at a percentile

This runs the same steps in reverse. The percentile becomes z through the inverse of Φ, the normal percent point function [2], and the height is read between the two published heights around that z.

Very short or very tall heights

Above the 95th percentile height, the calculator extends the curve as a normal distribution whose spread σ matches the gap between the published 5th and 95th percentiles. Below the 5th percentile it does the same from h₅, starting at z = −1.6449. For U.S. men aged 20 and over, σ = (187.4 − 162.8) ÷ 3.2897 = 7.48 cm.

U.S. Adult Height Percentiles

These are the measured heights the calculator uses for adults aged 20 and over [1]. A man 6 ft 1 in tall is at about the 92nd percentile, so roughly 1 in 12 men are taller.

Percentile	Men	Women
5th	5 ft 4.1 in (162.8 cm)	4 ft 11 in (149.8 cm)
10th	5 ft 5.3 in (165.8 cm)	5 ft 0 in (152.5 cm)
25th	5 ft 7 in (170.1 cm)	5 ft 1.6 in (156.4 cm)
50th	5 ft 9.1 in (175.4 cm)	5 ft 3.5 in (161.3 cm)
75th	5 ft 10.9 in (180.2 cm)	5 ft 5.4 in (166.0 cm)
90th	6 ft 0.7 in (184.7 cm)	5 ft 7 in (170.2 cm)
95th	6 ft 1.8 in (187.4 cm)	5 ft 7.9 in (172.5 cm)

Limits of This Estimate

• The comparison is with U.S. adults whose standing height was measured on a wall-mounted stadiometer in 2015–2018 [1]. A height measured in shoes reads high, and adults in other countries have different height distributions.
• Between the 5th and 95th percentiles the result follows CDC's published heights. Beyond them it assumes a normal curve, so results for very short or very tall people are approximate.
• The groups include all races and Hispanic origins. CDC also reports heights for each group separately, and their percentiles differ [1].

Sources