Average height in Afghanistan
Men in Afghanistan average 165.3 cm (5 ft 5 in), women 155.1 cm (5 ft 1 in). That puts Afghanistan 161st of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
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Afghanistan among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Afghanistan
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Afghanistan is taller than 99% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Afghanistan is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 157.3 and 173.3 cm, and roughly 95% between 149.3 and 181.3 cm. A man of 173 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 181 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Afghanistan are on average 10.2 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 5.7 cm shorter and women 3.9 cm shorter. These are means for people born in 1996, measured at 18. Older generations in most countries are shorter, by several centimetres where heights rose fast.
Questions
- Is 180 cm tall in Afghanistan?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 97% of men in Afghanistan. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Afghanistan.
- What is the average height of women in Afghanistan?
- Women in Afghanistan average 155.1 cm (5 ft 1 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 147.6 and 162.6 cm. That ranks 156th of 186 countries for women.
- How does Afghanistan compare to Gambia?
- Men in Gambia average 165.4 cm, 0.1 cm more than men in Afghanistan. Women average 160.9 cm against 155.1 cm. Gambia ranks 160th, Afghanistan 161st.
- How does Afghanistan compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Afghanistan are 5.7 cm shorter than that, women 3.9 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Afghanistan is one of them, so the SD and the percentiles above use the global spread rather than one measured here.
Source: NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, eLife 2016, mean height at 18 of adults born in 1996. Percentiles on this page are our estimate from a normal distribution with the stated mean and SD.
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