Average Height in Ecuador (Men & Women)

Ecuador's average height

Ecuador is one of the shorter countries in South America, but unlike much of the world it is still getting taller. In the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) estimates used on this site, Ecuadorian men born in 1996 average 167.1 cm (5′6″) and Ecuadorian women 154.2 cm (5′1″). Men rank 151st of 200 countries and women 178th.

Within South America, Ecuador ranks 10th of 12 countries for both men and women, ahead of only Bolivia and Peru. The gap to the tallest South American countries is substantial: 7.5 cm to Argentine men and 7.9 cm to Uruguayan women.

Every number here is a birth-cohort estimate: the modeled adult height of Ecuadorians born in one year, built by NCD-RisC from measured surveys only. That framing explains why the 1896 figure for men, 155.6 cm, and the 1996 figure, 167.1 cm, describe two entirely different generations rather than the same people growing. To see how a specific height compares with Ecuadorian averages, use the height percentile calculator.

A century of steady gains

Ecuadorian men gained 11.5 cm over the century and women 11.2 cm. The fastest growth came between the 1896 and 1956 cohorts, when men added 8.5 cm and women 9.2 cm. Since then the pace has slowed to about half a centimeter per decade, but it has not stopped. The 1996 cohort is the tallest in the series for both sexes.

That continued growth sets Ecuador apart. In many countries of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, the most recent cohorts were the same height as or shorter than their parents. NCD-RisC's 2020 study in The Lancet lists Latin America and the Caribbean among the regions with some of the largest height gains among children and adolescents between 1985 and 2019.

A century ago, Ecuador was very short by world standards. Ecuadorian women born in 1896 averaged 143.0 cm, about 2.7 cm taller than Guatemalan women, the shortest in the NCD-RisC study at 140.3 cm.

How Ecuador compares with its neighbors

Ecuador sits between its neighbors Colombia and Peru in height. It is almost level with Bolivia: 0.3 cm taller for both sexes. Ecuador's century of gains (11.5 cm for men) is slightly larger than Bolivia's (10.5 cm) and Peru's (10.3 cm), but smaller than Colombia's (12.2 cm).

NCD-RisC's 2020 study gives a sense of how far behind the shortest countries in the region remain: 19-year-old girls in Peru were among those in 53 countries whose average height matched that of 12-year-old Dutch girls. The same study observed that in some middle-income Latin American countries, such as Chile and Uruguay, children had optimal height at age 5 but fell about 2 cm or more below the WHO reference median by age 19, which suggests that growth during adolescence, not only early childhood, matters for the region.

Ecuador in the world

Ecuador's position looks different depending on whether you compare men or women. Ecuadorian men, at 167.1 cm, are taller than men in 49 countries, including India (164.9 cm), Vietnam (164.4 cm), Indonesia (163.6 cm) and the Philippines (163.2 cm). Ecuadorian women, at 154.2 cm, are taller than women in only 22 countries, including India (152.6 cm), Indonesia (152.8 cm) and Guatemala (149.4 cm).

The gap between men and women, 12.9 cm, has widened since the 1926 cohort, when it was 11.5 cm, because men gained slightly more than women after mid-century. Across the 12 South American countries in the site's data, the gap ranges from 11.3 cm in Uruguay to 15.4 cm in Argentina, and Ecuador sits in the middle, level with Bolivia and Paraguay.

Older and younger Ecuadorians

Because each figure describes a birth cohort, Ecuadorians of different ages differ noticeably in height. Men born in 1956, now around 70, averaged 164.1 cm and women 152.2 cm, 3.0 cm and 2.0 cm shorter than the 1996 cohort. A survey that measures adults of all ages will therefore report a lower national average than the figures at the top of this page. The youngest cohorts, born after the sharp fall in stunting since 2007, may turn out taller still.

Childhood stunting: the key to Ecuador's height

Our World in Data explains that a population's adult height reflects nutrition and health in early life, and that stunting, which usually develops in the first two years, is the key marker of childhood malnutrition. Ecuador's stunting rates help explain why its adults remain shorter than most of their neighbors.

A high rate for the region

WHO modeled estimates show stunting among Ecuadorian children under 5 rising slightly in the early 2000s and then falling:

A 2026 study in Lancet Regional Health – Americas, based on Ecuador's 2022–2023 National Survey on Child Undernutrition (ENDI), points out that Ecuador's stunting rate in 2022 (17.7%) was nearly double the Latin American average of 9.9%, though down from 24.3% in 2012. Across Latin America, stunting has stayed at about 10% since 2012.

Indigenous children carry the heaviest burden

The ENDI study, which represents about 1.3 million children under 5, found that stunting or wasting affected 17.1% of children nationally. The highest rates were among Indigenous children, whose stunting peaked at 46.9% for boys at about 30 months and 44% for girls at about 34 months. Undernutrition was initially more common among boys and shifted toward girls after about age three.

The same study describes Ecuador as an ethnically diverse country with four natural regions, the Coast, the Highlands (Sierra), the Amazon and the Galápagos Islands, each with distinct economic conditions. The Amazon had the highest poverty: 52% of households had income below the poverty line and 59% had unmet basic needs.

A double and triple burden

Ecuador is also seeing the opposite problem. The ENDI study found that 4.9% of children under 5 were overweight, most often White children from wealthier urban families, and that severe anemia affected 14.8% of children aged 6 to 59 months. About 0.6% of children, roughly 7,760, were both undernourished and overweight. The authors describe a nutrition transition that is producing different risks for different social groups.

Food and water insecurity

A 2024 study in Maternal & Child Nutrition used Ecuador's 2018 National Health and Nutrition Survey (ENSANUT), which measured children's length and height and calculated height-for-age against WHO growth references. It found that about 24% of households reported marginal food insecurity and 21% moderate to severe food insecurity, and that food-insecure households were more likely to have mothers who were Indigenous or Afro-descendant and less likely to have mothers with secondary education.

The survey itself shows how Ecuador tracks child growth. ENSANUT 2018 collected data between 2018 and 2019 that are representative at the national, provincial, urban and rural levels. Field staff measured each child's length or height, and analysts converted the results into height-for-age z-scores; a child more than two standard deviations below the WHO median for age and sex was classed as stunted. The survey also recorded the household's region, from the Pacific Coast and the Andean highlands to the Amazon and the Galápagos Islands, so that results can be compared across Ecuador's very different environments.

Moderate to severe household food insecurity was associated with a 20% higher prevalence of stunting before adjustment, though much of that link disappeared once the authors accounted for other household factors. The result is a reminder that stunting has many overlapping causes, including poverty, education, sanitation and illness.

Signs of progress

There are reasons to expect Ecuador's height gains to continue. A 2026 study in BMJ Open examined ethnic disparities in maternal and child health across three national surveys (2004, 2012 and 2018). After the 2000 economic crisis, Ecuador had the largest ethnic gaps in the region in health service coverage. By 2018, coverage of prenatal care, institutional deliveries and professionally assisted births among Indigenous populations had risen from 27% to 75%, secondary education among Indigenous people had risen from 25% to 45%, and the share of Indigenous people in the highest wealth groups had doubled from 10% to 20%. Afro-Ecuadorian communities also saw better health coverage and living conditions, though their progress was less pronounced than that of Indigenous groups. The authors link these improvements to social investment in rural health and education since 2008, the constitutional recognition of plurinationality and policies promoting intercultural health practices, though they note that ethnic gaps remain and that monitoring of the policies' impact has been weak.

Better maternal care, schooling and income are among the conditions that research associates with taller children. Combined with stunting falling from 28.9% in 2007 to 17.7% in 2024, they suggest Ecuador's most recent cohorts may end up taller than the 1996 estimate.

What Ecuadorian height means

An average Ecuadorian man at 167.1 cm is about 5′6″, and an average Ecuadorian woman at 154.2 cm is about 5′0½″. A woman of 155 cm would be slightly above the national average; see the 155 cm page to compare that height around the world. A man of 175 cm (5′9″) would be 7.9 cm above the Ecuadorian average, roughly the average height of men in Romania (174.7 cm).

Ecuador's story is one of steady, continuing progress from a low starting point, held back by high childhood stunting, especially among Indigenous children. To compare Ecuador with any other country, visit the average height hub.