Average height in Mauritania
Men in Mauritania average 163.3 cm (5 ft 4 in), women 157.7 cm (5 ft 2 in). That puts Mauritania 178th of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
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Mauritania among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Mauritania
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Mauritania 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 Mauritania is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 155.3 and 171.3 cm, and roughly 95% between 147.3 and 179.3 cm. A man of 171 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 179 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Mauritania are on average 5.6 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 7.7 cm shorter and women 1.3 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 Mauritania?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 98% of men in Mauritania. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Mauritania.
- What is the average height of women in Mauritania?
- Women in Mauritania average 157.7 cm (5 ft 2 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 150.2 and 165.2 cm. That ranks 122nd of 186 countries for women.
- How does Mauritania compare to Cambodia?
- Men in Cambodia average 163.3 cm, 0.0 cm more than men in Mauritania. Women average 152.9 cm against 157.7 cm. Cambodia ranks 177th, Mauritania 178th.
- How does Mauritania compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Mauritania are 7.7 cm shorter than that, women 1.3 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Mauritania 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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