Average height in Iceland
Men in Iceland average 180.5 cm (5 ft 11 in), women 165.9 cm (5 ft 5 in). That puts Iceland 9th of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
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Iceland among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Iceland
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Iceland is taller than 71% of men. Values under 1% or over 99% are shown as <1 and >99.
In plain language
The standard deviation for men in Iceland is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 172.5 and 188.5 cm, and roughly 95% between 164.5 and 196.5 cm. A man of 189 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 197 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Iceland are on average 14.6 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 9.5 cm taller and women 6.9 cm taller. 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 Iceland?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 48% of men in Iceland. That is about average here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than 97% of women in Iceland.
- What is the average height of women in Iceland?
- Women in Iceland average 165.9 cm (5 ft 5 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 158.4 and 173.4 cm. That ranks 15th of 186 countries for women.
- How does Iceland compare to Serbia?
- Men in Serbia average 180.6 cm, 0.1 cm more than men in Iceland. Women average 167.7 cm against 165.9 cm. Serbia ranks 8th, Iceland 9th.
- How does Iceland compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Iceland are 9.5 cm taller than that, women 6.9 cm taller.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Iceland 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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