Height percentile calculator

It is the share of a reference group shorter than you. At the 75th percentile you are taller than roughly 75% of that group and shorter than 25%. It says nothing on its own — the group matters as much as the number.

Your height is converted to a z-score — (height − mean) ÷ standard deviation — and read off a normal distribution. For US adults we use the CDC's measured mean of 175.3 cm for men and 161.3 cm for women, with standard deviations of 7.5 and 6.9 derived from the report's own published percentiles.

Because the reference group changes. The gap between the tallest and shortest national averages we hold — Netherlands at 183.8 cm and Timor-Leste at 160.1 cm — is larger than the gap between the 10th and 90th percentile within most single countries. The same person is unremarkable in one place and notably tall in another.

No. Children are assessed against age-and-sex growth charts, which is a different calculation with a clinical purpose. We deliberately do not produce a number for under-20s rather than produce a misleading one.

Treat it as an estimate. Real height distributions are close to normal in the middle and drift at the extremes, and outside the US the standard deviation is assumed rather than measured per country. Percentiles above the 97th or below the 3rd are the least reliable.