Average height in Tanzania
Men in Tanzania average 164.8 cm (5 ft 5 in), women 155.9 cm (5 ft 1 in). That puts Tanzania 167th of 186 countries in our data.
Key numbers
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Tanzania among its neighbours
What counts as tall in Tanzania
Read it as: a man of 185 cm in Tanzania 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 Tanzania is 8.0 cm. In practice that means about two thirds of men stand between 156.8 and 172.8 cm, and roughly 95% between 148.8 and 180.8 cm. A man of 173 cm is taller than about 84% of men here; one of 181 cm is taller than about 98%.
Men in Tanzania are on average 8.9 cm taller than women. Compared with the global mean, men here are 6.2 cm shorter and women 3.1 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 Tanzania?
- A man of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is taller than about 97% of men in Tanzania. That is clearly tall here. For a woman, 180 cm is taller than >99% of women in Tanzania.
- What is the average height of women in Tanzania?
- Women in Tanzania average 155.9 cm (5 ft 1 in), with a standard deviation of 7.5 cm. About two thirds of women are between 148.4 and 163.4 cm. That ranks 148th of 186 countries for women.
- How does Tanzania compare to Mozambique?
- Men in Mozambique average 164.8 cm, 0.0 cm more than men in Tanzania. Women average 154.0 cm against 155.9 cm. Mozambique ranks 166th, Tanzania 167th.
- How does Tanzania compare to the world average?
- The global mean is 171.0 cm for men and 159.0 cm for women. Men in Tanzania are 6.2 cm shorter than that, women 3.1 cm shorter.
NCD-RisC does not publish standard deviations. SD for countries added in 2026-10 uses the global SD. Tanzania 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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