Average height in Costa Rica
Men in Costa Rica average 168.9 cm (5 ft 6 in), women 156.4 cm (5 ft 2 in). That puts Costa Rica 114th of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
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Costa Rica among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Costa Rica
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Costa Rica is taller than 98% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Costa Rica is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 160.9 and 176.9 cm, and roughly 95% between 152.9 and 184.9 cm. A man of 177 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 185 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Costa Rica are on average 12.5 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 2.1 cm shorter and women 2.6 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 Costa Rica?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 92% of men in Costa Rica. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Costa Rica.
- What is the average height of women in Costa Rica?
- Women in Costa Rica average 156.4 cm (5 ft 2 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 148.9 and 163.9 cm. That ranks 138th of 186 countries for women.
- How does Costa Rica compare to Mexico?
- Men in Mexico average 169.0 cm, 0.1 cm more than men in Costa Rica. Women average 156.8 cm against 156.4 cm. Mexico ranks 113th, Costa Rica 114th.
- How does Costa Rica compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Costa Rica are 2.1 cm shorter than that, women 2.6 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Costa Rica 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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