Average height in Madagascar
Men in Madagascar average 161.5 cm (5 ft 4 in), women 151.2 cm (4 ft 12 in). That puts Madagascar 183rd of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
Advertisement
Madagascar among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Madagascar
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Madagascar 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 Madagascar is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 153.5 and 169.5 cm, and roughly 95% between 145.5 and 177.5 cm. A man of 170 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 178 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Madagascar are on average 10.3 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 9.5 cm shorter and women 7.8 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 Madagascar?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 99% of men in Madagascar. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Madagascar.
- What is the average height of women in Madagascar?
- Women in Madagascar average 151.2 cm (4 ft 12 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 143.7 and 158.7 cm. That ranks 181st of 186 countries for women.
- How does Madagascar compare to Malawi?
- Men in Malawi average 162.2 cm, 0.7 cm more than men in Madagascar. Women average 154.4 cm against 151.2 cm. Malawi ranks 182nd, Madagascar 183rd.
- How does Madagascar compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Madagascar are 9.5 cm shorter than that, women 7.8 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Madagascar 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.
Enter your height and see what share of men or women are shorter than you, globally or in one of the countries in the picker.
Check your heightAlso by country: Average BMI by country and Life expectancy by country.