Average height in Papua New Guinea
Men in Papua New Guinea average 163.6 cm (5 ft 4 in), women 154.9 cm (5 ft 1 in). That puts Papua New Guinea 175th of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
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Papua New Guinea among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Papua New Guinea
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Papua New Guinea 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 Papua New Guinea is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 155.6 and 171.6 cm, and roughly 95% between 147.6 and 179.6 cm. A man of 172 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 180 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Papua New Guinea are on average 8.7 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 7.4 cm shorter and women 4.1 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 Papua New Guinea?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 98% of men in Papua New Guinea. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Papua New Guinea.
- What is the average height of women in Papua New Guinea?
- Women in Papua New Guinea average 154.9 cm (5 ft 1 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 147.4 and 162.4 cm. That ranks 158th of 186 countries for women.
- How does Papua New Guinea compare to Indonesia?
- Men in Indonesia average 163.6 cm, 0.0 cm more than men in Papua New Guinea. Women average 152.8 cm against 154.9 cm. Indonesia ranks 174th, Papua New Guinea 175th.
- How does Papua New Guinea compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Papua New Guinea are 7.4 cm shorter than that, women 4.1 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Papua New Guinea 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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