Average Height in Egypt (Men & Women)

Average height in Egypt at a glance

On this site, Egypt's headline figures are 166.7 cm (5′6″) for men and 157.3 cm (5′2″) for women. These are the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) estimates for Egyptians born in 1996, published in eLife in 2016 and charted by Our World in Data. The 9.4 cm gap between the sexes is a little smaller than in most of Europe, where it's usually 13 to 15 cm.

Egypt's story is unusual, though. Its men are now estimated to be shorter than the cohort born in the early 1970s, and the country's own measured surveys disagree with the newest model estimate by several centimeters. Both points are covered below, because anyone comparing Egyptian heights should know the range of credible figures and not just one number.

What "born in 1996" means and where the numbers come from

NCD-RisC pooled 1,472 population-based studies covering more than 18.6 million people in 200 countries. The collaboration only used measured heights and excluded self-reported data, which it calls the most important source of bias in adult height research. The model estimates average height by birth cohort, so the 1996 figure describes people who turned 18 in 2014. The model also corrects for the height people lose as they age, so a cohort's figure represents its young-adult height.

That approach has a weakness for the youngest cohorts. People born in the 1990s had been measured as adults in only a handful of surveys by the time the analysis was done, so their estimates rest on less data than older cohorts. NCD-RisC reports uncertainty ranges for every estimate for this reason.

A century of change: up, then down

The NCD-RisC series begins with Egyptians born in 1896, when men averaged 158.6 cm and women 148.7 cm. What followed was one of the faster gains in Africa and the Middle East.

Men gained more than 11 cm between the 1896 and 1956 cohorts. By the 1970s they had reached about 170.5 cm, the peak of the series. Then the estimate drops by nearly 4 cm for men born in 1996. Women's averages peaked earlier, with the 1964 cohort at 159.1 cm, and they've slipped by less than 2 cm since.

The NCD-RisC authors describe a broader pattern in which height gains "reversed in Africa," and they link it to childhood stunting in sub-Saharan Africa that rose into the mid-1990s. Egypt is in North Africa and its data are different from the sub-Saharan countries, so the reversal needs checking against Egypt's own surveys.

What the longer historical record shows

Our World in Data hosts a second, older series compiled by Joerg Baten and Matthias Blum for the Clio-Infra project. It reconstructs men's heights by birth decade from military, prison and survey records. For Egypt it shows men at about 166 to 168 cm in the mid-19th century, a dip to 163 cm for the 1880s birth decade, and a rise to about 171 cm for men born in the 1970s and 1980s. That series has 171.7 cm for the 2000s birth decade. It doesn't show a sharp fall.

Our World in Data also reproduces skeletal estimates collected by Gregory Clark. They put Egyptian men at roughly 165 cm in the pre-dynastic period and 166 cm in the dynastic period. Egyptian men born in the late 19th century were no taller than men who lived thousands of years earlier, and the big change came in the 20th century.

Egypt's own surveys: measured heights tell a different story

Egypt has an unusually long run of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), carried out by the Ministry of Health and Population with The DHS Program. Teams measure people at home with portable measuring boards made by Shorr Productions. The 2015 Egypt Health Issues Survey (EHIS) went further than earlier rounds. It measured nearly 9,000 women and more than 7,200 men aged 15 to 59, including never-married women, who earlier surveys had left out.

The results:

• Men aged 15–59 averaged 171.0 cm, and women 158.4 cm, a gap of about 13 cm.
• The youngest adult men, aged 20–24 (born roughly 1990–1995), averaged 172.4 cm. Women of the same age averaged 159.1 cm.
• Older groups were shorter. Men aged 55–59 averaged 168.3 cm and women 155.9 cm, which fits a long-run rise plus some height loss with age.
• In the earlier 2008 DHS, men aged 15–59 averaged 169.3 cm and mothers 158.4 cm.

For women, the survey and the model roughly agree: 159.1 cm measured for women in their early twenties against 157.3 cm modeled for the 1996 cohort. For men they don't. Measured men in their early twenties were about 5.7 cm taller than the NCD-RisC figure for men born in 1996. We keep the NCD-RisC number as the site's headline figure because every country page uses the same method. But we'd read the downward trend for Egyptian men as uncertain until newer pooled estimates confirm or revise it.

Regional differences: Upper Egypt versus Lower Egypt

The 2015 survey reports heights by region. The pattern runs north to south.

The differences are modest, about 2 cm for women and 1.5 cm for men. Education shows a similar spread. Women with no schooling averaged 156.8 cm, and men with no schooling 168.4 cm. The report's authors note that mean height varies little across most background characteristics. Even so, the gradient is consistent: the 2014 DHS also found a slightly higher share of very short women in rural Upper Egypt (0.8 percent under 145 cm) than in urban governorates (0.3 percent).

Childhood nutrition and the stunting record

Adult height reflects how well children grew years earlier. The DHS Program's figures for children under five who were stunted (too short for their age by WHO standards) in Egypt aren't a smooth decline:

Stunting fell sharply around 2000, rose again in the 2008 survey, and eased by 2014. The children in these surveys are too young to show up in the NCD-RisC 1996 cohort, but the up-and-down record is a reminder that Egypt's progress on child growth hasn't been one-directional. Very short adult stature is rare, though. In 2014 only 0.5 percent of ever-married women aged 15–49 were under 145 cm, the cutoff that surveys use to flag a higher risk of difficult deliveries.

Height, weight and body mass in the same surveys

Because DHS teams weigh and measure the same people, Egypt's surveys also show how height relates to body size. In the 2015 Health Issues Survey, women aged 15–59 weighed 77.1 kg on average and men 79.1 kg. Men were about 13 cm taller but only about 2 kg heavier. As a result, women's body mass index (BMI) ran higher. Half of the women surveyed were classed as obese (BMI 30 or more) and another 26 percent as overweight, compared with 26 percent obese and 34 percent overweight among men.

Seven years earlier, the 2008 DHS had already found 40 percent of women and 18 percent of men aged 15–59 in the obese range. Those figures matter for height comparisons in two ways:

• Height stopped rising while weight kept rising. Women's average height was the same 158.4 cm in 2008 and 2015, while weight and obesity went up. The change in body size over this period was almost entirely in weight.
• BMI is calculated from height. A survey that overstated height would understate BMI. Egypt's surveys measure height with a board instead of asking people, so their obesity figures don't carry the self-report bias that NCD-RisC warns about.

If you're using the height comparison tool to picture an average Egyptian, it helps to remember that the typical adult in these surveys is overweight by the BMI definition. The tool's figures show height only, so they'll look slimmer than the survey averages.

Height by age within one survey

The 2015 survey's age breakdown also shows the gradient you'd expect from a population that grew taller over the 20th century. Women aged 15–19 and 20–24 both averaged 159.1 cm, women in their thirties about 158.7 to 158.9 cm, and women aged 55–59 only 155.9 cm. For men, the tallest group was aged 20–24, at 172.4 cm. Men in their thirties averaged 171.9 to 172.0 cm, and men aged 55–59 averaged 168.3 cm. Part of that 4 cm spread is age-related shrinking, which the NCD-RisC model adjusts for. The rest reflects older Egyptians having grown up with poorer nutrition.

Egypt compared with its neighbors

Egypt sits in the middle of its region. On the NCD-RisC figures for the 1996 cohort, Egyptian men rank about 157th of 200 countries and women about 137th.

Egyptian men and women are almost exactly as tall as Sudanese men and women in the model. But if you used the 2015 measured survey for Egyptian men instead, they'd land close to Jordan. That's another reason to treat comparisons in this region as approximate.

Using these numbers in practice

For everyday comparisons, a typical Egyptian man is between 5′6″ and 5′8″, depending on which source you trust, and a typical Egyptian woman is about 5′2″ to 5′3″. To see how a specific person compares, enter their height in the height percentile calculator or put two people side by side in the height comparison tool. The cm to feet converter is useful when Egyptian records list height in centimeters and you think in feet and inches.

For context across the Arab world and the rest of Africa, the average height by country hub lists all 200 countries with the same NCD-RisC method.

Why Egypt's height data matter

Height is one of the few health indicators that can be measured cheaply in every household survey, so it gives a long view of living standards. Our World in Data notes that differences between populations largely reflect nutrition and health during pregnancy, childhood and adolescence, while differences between individuals within a population are largely genetic.

Egypt's record shows both sides. Its 20th-century gains match those of countries that got richer and healthier. Its measured surveys suggest those gains largely held for people born up to the mid-1990s. The open question is whether the downturn in the NCD-RisC estimate for men is real or a quirk of the model. The next round of pooled analyses, using Egypt's 2015 survey and later measurements, should settle that.