Average height in Rwanda
Men in Rwanda average 162.7 cm (5 ft 4 in), women 154.8 cm (5 ft 1 in). That puts Rwanda 180th of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
Advertisement
Rwanda among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Rwanda
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Rwanda 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 Rwanda is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 154.7 and 170.7 cm, and roughly 95% between 146.7 and 178.7 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 Rwanda are on average 7.9 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 8.3 cm shorter and women 4.2 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 Rwanda?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 98% of men in Rwanda. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Rwanda.
- What is the average height of women in Rwanda?
- Women in Rwanda average 154.8 cm (5 ft 1 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 147.3 and 162.3 cm. That ranks 159th of 186 countries for women.
- How does Rwanda compare to Philippines?
- Men in Philippines average 163.2 cm, 0.5 cm more than men in Rwanda. Women average 149.6 cm against 154.8 cm. Philippines ranks 179th, Rwanda 180th.
- How does Rwanda compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Rwanda are 8.3 cm shorter than that, women 4.2 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Rwanda 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.