US Female Height Distribution: Percentiles & Averages

The female height percentile table

The CDC's anthropometric reference tables translate measured heights into percentiles for adult women aged 20 and over. Half of American women fall in the narrow band between about 5'1.5" and 5'5.5". Heights outside 4'11" to 5'8" are genuinely uncommon, each tail covering only about 5% of women.

It is worth stressing that these figures come from stadiometer measurements taken in NHANES mobile examination centers, not from what respondents claim. Self-reported height surveys consistently run about half an inch to an inch taller than measured height, a bias that grows with age as people report their peak adult height rather than their current one. Any height statistic drawn from dating profiles or phone surveys should be read with that inflation in mind.

How rare are tall women?

Because the distribution is tight, tall women are rarer than most people intuit. Only about 10% of American women are 5'7" or taller, roughly 5% reach 5'8", and around 1% stand 5'10" or above. A woman of 6'0" is beyond the 99.7th percentile, meaning fewer than 3 in 1,000 US women reach that height.

The same math works in reverse. About 10% of women are 5'0" or shorter, and roughly 5% are under 4'11". Anyone filtering a dating pool by height should recognize that seemingly modest thresholds carve away large fractions of the population: requiring a partner of at least 5'6", for example, excludes about 80% of American women outright.

Height preferences also interact with the male distribution. The average American man measures about 5'9", so a woman of 5'8" in heels stands at or above eye level with the median man. This pairing arithmetic, rather than rarity alone, is why tall women consistently report a thinner effective dating market despite being a small share of the population.

Average height by race and ethnicity

NHANES publishes measured heights by racial and ethnic group, and the differences are modest but consistent. Non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic Black women both average close to 64 inches, while Hispanic women average about 62 inches and non-Hispanic Asian women about 62.5 inches. The roughly two-inch gap shifts the whole distribution, so a 5'7" Hispanic or Asian woman sits near the 95th percentile of her group rather than the 90th.

These are population averages that conceal wide within-group variation; the standard deviation within each group is similar to the overall figure of about 2.7 inches. Immigration patterns also matter, since adult height is heavily influenced by childhood nutrition, and US-born generations tend to be taller than their immigrant parents.

Is the average woman getting taller?

Not anymore. American women gained height steadily through the early and mid twentieth century as nutrition and public health improved, but CDC measurement series show mean female height has been essentially flat for the past several decades, hovering within a few tenths of an inch of 63.5 inches since the 1990s.

The United States has also lost its historical height advantage internationally. Comparative studies place Dutch and Scandinavian women among the tallest in the world at roughly 66-67 inches on average, two to three inches above American women. Researchers attribute the US plateau partly to diet quality and healthcare access rather than genetics.

Run the numbers yourself

Height is one of many measurable traits that shrink a dating pool faster than intuition suggests. The Female Partner Calculator combines demographic filters like age, body composition, education, and relationship history to show what percentage of US women meets an entire set of criteria at once.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• CDC, Anthropometric Reference Data for Children and Adults: United States
• CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)
• CDC, Body Measurements (FastStats)