Average Height in Afghanistan (Men & Women)

How tall Afghans are

Afghan men born in 1996 average 165.3 cm (5′5″) and Afghan women 155.1 cm (5′1″), according to the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) estimates used across this site. Afghanistan ranks 174th of 200 countries for men and 168th for women.

What sets Afghanistan apart is how little its average height has changed. Over the century of birth cohorts in the NCD-RisC data, Afghan men gained just over 4 cm, less than men in 176 of the other 199 countries, while neighboring Iran gained more than 16 cm. This guide explains the estimates, traces the century of change, looks at Afghanistan's 2018 national measurement survey and its children's growth, and compares Afghanistan with its neighbors.

About the estimates

The NCD-RisC study, published in eLife in 2016, pooled 1,472 population-based data sources with measured height for more than 18.6 million adults. For each of 200 countries and territories, it estimated the average height at age 18 for people born each year from 1896 to 1996. Only measured heights were used, since self-reports tend to run high.

Each value describes a birth cohort: the 165.3 cm headline is for men born in 1996, who reached adulthood around 2014. Data availability varies widely. NCD-RisC notes that only 72 countries had data for people born in 1920 or earlier, so early estimates for Afghanistan depend heavily on the statistical model and should be treated as approximate.

A century with little change

Afghan men gained 4.1 cm over the whole century in this series, and women 5.9 cm. Men's gains were slow throughout: 1.3 cm between the 1896 and 1926 cohorts, 2.0 cm by 1956, and 0.8 cm by 1976. Men born in 1996 are estimated to be exactly as tall as men born in 1976.

Women's height rose faster in the first half of the century, by 3.9 cm between 1896 and 1926 and another 3.1 cm by 1956, narrowing the gap between the sexes from 12.0 cm to 8.3 cm. Women then reached a peak with the 1956 cohort and slipped 1.1 cm by 1996, so the gap widened again to 10.2 cm.

To put Afghanistan's century in context: in the site data, men in neighboring Iran gained 16.5 cm over the same period, the largest gain of any men in the world according to the NCD-RisC paper, and South Korean women gained about 20 cm. Afghanistan's total gain for men is about a quarter of Iran's.

Why height reflects childhood

Our World in Data describes average height as a marker of the conditions children grow up in. Nutrition is one of the strongest determinants, and childhood illness restricts growth by reducing the nutrients available and raising the body's energy needs. Most stunting occurs in the first two years of life. Differences between countries and changes over generations mostly reflect these environmental conditions, because gene pools change slowly.

The sources reviewed for this page don't analyze the causes of Afghanistan's slow growth specifically, so this guide doesn't assign it to particular events. What the data do show, below, is that childhood stunting has been very common for as long as it has been measured.

Afghanistan's 2018 STEPS survey

The most recent national measurement of adult height comes from Afghanistan's National Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Survey, carried out from February to October 2018 using the World Health Organization's STEPS method. The survey covered household members aged 18 to 69 and was designed to produce nationally representative results.

Design

The planned sample was 3,972 household members, calculated so that precise estimates could be made for three age groups (18 to 29, 30 to 44 and 45 to 69) for each sex. Districts served as the primary sampling units. From the 417 districts in Afghanistan's 34 provinces, 55 were selected, and the report states data were collected from 50 randomly selected districts. Villages or blocks formed the second stage and households the third. According to the fact sheet, 3,956 adults took part.

Data collection teams were trained in five batches, in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Kandahar and Nangarhar, to cover the Central, Northern and North Eastern, Western, Southern and South Eastern regions.

How height was measured

After the questionnaire, trained healthcare staff took physical measurements in the household, in a safe and secure area, with a screened-off space for privacy where needed. Height and weight were measured with portable electronic scales and rigid measuring bars.

What it found

Women's average height in the survey, 155.3 cm, is almost identical to the NCD-RisC estimate of 155.1 cm for women born in 1996. Men's average, 168.2 cm, is 2.9 cm above the NCD-RisC estimate of 165.3 cm. The survey average covers men born between about 1949 and 2000, so it doesn't correspond to a single cohort, and the report doesn't publish height by age group. Still, the men's figure is higher than every NCD-RisC estimate in the century series, so the difference can't be explained by the age mix alone. It suggests the NCD-RisC estimates for Afghan men, which rest on limited data, may be on the low side.

Weight and body mass

The same survey found an average BMI of 25.1 across both sexes. Some 7.1% of adults were underweight (BMI below 18.5), half had a normal BMI, 25.8% were overweight and 17.0% obese. Obesity was twice as common among women as men, and highest among people aged 30 to 44, reaching 30.6% of women in that age group. Mean weight peaked in the 30 to 44 age group for both sexes.

These figures are a reminder that short stature and undernutrition in childhood can coexist with overweight in adulthood. The report notes earlier studies in Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Kabul that found about half of adults in those cities were overweight or obese.

Children's growth

Childhood stunting, meaning low height for age, is the most direct link between living conditions and adult height. World Bank figures for Afghanistan show very high levels:

In the late 1990s and mid-2000s, more than half of young Afghan children were stunted. Children who were under 5 in 1997 were born in the early to mid-1990s, the same generation as the NCD-RisC 1996 cohort. That fits a cohort that grew no taller than its parents.

Stunting then fell to around 40% by 2013 and 38% by 2018, before rising again to 44.6% in 2022. UNICEF describes Afghanistan's child stunting rate of 41% as among the highest in the world, with severe acute malnutrition (wasting) at 9.5%. It cites poor feeding practices, contaminated food and water that increase the risk of diarrhea and pneumonia, malnourished mothers creating a cycle of stunting across generations, limited access to nutrition services in remote areas, and rising insecurity. UNICEF also reports that only 12% of children aged 6 to 24 months receive the right variety and amount of food for their age.

Comparing the survey with the model

The two sources also differ on the gap between the sexes. In STEPS, men were 12.9 cm taller than women; in the NCD-RisC estimate for the 1996 cohort, the gap is 10.2 cm. Since the women's averages match almost exactly, the whole difference comes from the men's figures.

Some caution is needed in reading either number. The STEPS report gives the overall means without confidence intervals or a breakdown by age, so it isn't possible to tell from the report how much height varies between younger and older Afghan adults. The survey is also a single snapshot, and the report notes that 55 districts were selected but data were collected from 50, without breaking down results by district. NCD-RisC, for its part, warns that its estimates are less certain where national data are sparse, as they have been for Afghanistan.

The safest summary is that Afghan women born in the 1990s average about 155 cm by both measures, and Afghan men somewhere between about 165 cm and 168 cm.

Afghanistan in the global ranking

Afghanistan's 1996 cohort figures place it among a mixed group of countries. For men, the nearest values in the NCD-RisC data are Gambia (165.4 cm), Bhutan (165.3 cm), Peru (165.2 cm) and India (164.9 cm), with Uganda and Lesotho just above at 165.6 cm. For women, Afghanistan's 155.1 cm sits next to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (155.2 cm) and the Maldives (155.0 cm).

The century-long view is more distinctive. The median gain for men across all 200 countries was 9.9 cm. Afghanistan's 4.1 cm is less than half that, and 23 countries had smaller gains, including neighboring Pakistan, where men gained just 1.2 cm. India's gain was 2.9 cm. Much of South Asia, in other words, saw slow growth in men's height over the century, while Iran gained four times as much and the Central Asian countries to the north, with gains of 8.3 to 10.3 cm, roughly twice as much.

Afghanistan and its neighbors

Afghan men are the shortest among Afghanistan's direct neighbors in the NCD-RisC estimates, 1.6 cm shorter than Pakistani men and 8.3 cm shorter than Iranian men. Afghan women are taller than Pakistani women, by 1.3 cm, but 4.6 cm shorter than Iranian women. To the north, men in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are 4.1 to 6.7 cm taller.

The Iranian comparison is the most dramatic. For the 1896 cohort, Afghan men were taller than Iranian men, 161.2 cm against 157.1 cm. A century later the order is reversed and the gap is more than 8 cm. If the STEPS measurement of 168.2 cm is closer to the truth for Afghan men, the gap with Iran would be smaller, about 5 cm, and Afghan men would be slightly taller than Pakistani men.

Practical context

An average Afghan man born in 1996 is about 5′5″, close to the 165 cm page, and an average Afghan woman about 5′1″. Using the STEPS survey averages instead, a typical Afghan man is about 5′6″.

To see where your height falls among Afghan men or women born in 1996, use the height percentile calculator. For all 200 countries and an explanation of the data, see the average height hub.