Danish men fifth tallest in the world

The average 18-year-old measures 181.4 cm in height

Lucie Rychla

Danish men are the fifth tallest in the world, reveals a new study published in the medical journal eLife on Tuesday.

Researchers from NCD Risk Factor Collaboration mapped out the height of 18-year-olds in 187 countries and compared the growth trend between 1914 and 2014.

Danish men have increased their height by 11.4 centimetres over the past 100 years, moving up from ninth place.

The average 18-year-old Danish man is now 181.4 cm tall – barely half an inch shy of six foot.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old Danish women are – with an average height of 167.2 cm – also among the tallest on the planet.

They have gone up 10.1 cm over the past century and moved from 11th place to their current ranking of 7th.

READ MORE: Danish men keep getting taller

The tallest and smallest
Dutch men (182.5 cm) and Latvian women (169.8 cm) are the tallest, while the world’s smallest men live in East Timor (159.8 cm) and the smallest women in Guatemala (149.4 cm).

The largest gain in height over the past century was recorded among South Korean women and Iranian men, who have increased their height by 20.2 cm and 16.5 cm respectively.

Scientists maintain that being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, higher education and earnings.

TOP STORIES

  • Becoming a stranger in your own country

    Becoming a stranger in your own country

    Many stories are heard about internationals moving to Denmark for the first time. They face hardships when finding a job, a place to live, or a sense of belonging. But what about Danes coming back home? Holding Danish citizenship doesn’t mean your path home will be smoother. To shed light on what returning Danes are facing, Michael Bach Petersen, Secretary General of Danes Worldwide, unpacks the reality behind moving back

  • EU Foreign Ministers meet in Denmark to strategize a forced Russia-Ukraine peace deal

    EU Foreign Ministers meet in Denmark to strategize a forced Russia-Ukraine peace deal

    Foreign ministers from 11 European countries convened on the Danish island of Bornholm on April 28-29 to discuss Nordic-Baltic security, enhanced Russian sanctions, and a way forward for the fraught peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow

  • How small cubes spark great green opportunities: a Chinese engineer’s entrepreneurial journey in Denmark

    How small cubes spark great green opportunities: a Chinese engineer’s entrepreneurial journey in Denmark

    Hao Yin, CEO of a high-tech start-up TEGnology, shares how he transformed a niche patent into marketable products as an engineer-turned-businessman, after navigating early setbacks. “We can’t just wait for ‘groundbreaking innovations’ and risk missing the market window,” he says. “The key is maximising the potential of existing technologies in the right contexts.”

  • Gangs of Copenhagen

    Gangs of Copenhagen

    While Copenhagen is rated one of the safest cities in the world year after year, it is no stranger to organized crime, which often springs from highly professional syndicates operating from the shadows of the capital. These are the most important criminal groups active in the city

  • “The Danish underworld is now more tied to Scandinavia”

    “The Danish underworld is now more tied to Scandinavia”

    Carsten Norton is the author of several books about crime and gangs in Denmark, a journalist, and a crime specialist for Danish media such as TV 2 and Ekstra Bladet.

  • Right wing parties want nuclear power in Denmark

    Right wing parties want nuclear power in Denmark

    For 40 years, there has been a ban on nuclear power in Denmark. This may change after all right-wing parties in the Danish Parliament have expressed a desire to remove the ban.

Connect club

Connect Club is your gateway to a vibrant programme of events and an international community in Denmark.

Sign up here

Career

Want to advertise your job with CPH Post?

Contact us

Jobs