Average Height in Hungary (Men & Women)

Average height in Hungary today

Hungarian men born in 1996 average 177.3 cm (5′10″) and Hungarian women 163.7 cm (5′4″), according to the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). These are the values used on this page and in our tools. Among 200 countries and territories, Hungarian men rank 35th and Hungarian women 41st. Within Europe both sexes rank 31st of 41 countries, so Hungary is tall by global standards but sits in the lower part of a very tall continent.

A Hungarian man of average height is about half a centimeter short of 5′10″ (177.8 cm). The average Hungarian woman is very close to 164 cm, just under 5′5″.

How the estimates are built, and why Hungary's range is wide

NCD-RisC's 2016 study, published in eLife, pooled 1,472 population-based studies with height measurements for more than 18.6 million people born from 1896 to 1996. A Bayesian hierarchical model estimated mean height at age 18 for each country and for each birth cohort, the people born in a given year. Our World in Data explains the logic: adult height mainly reflects the food and health conditions a person experienced while growing up, so each cohort's height is a record of a particular childhood environment.

One feature of the Hungarian numbers deserves attention. The 95% credible interval for men born in 1996 runs from 173.7 to 180.9 cm, a range of more than 7 cm. For Greece, by comparison, the same interval is about 3 cm wide. The model widens its range when it has fewer recent national data points to anchor the estimate. So while 177.3 cm is the best single figure, the real average could plausibly be a few centimeters either side. As we will see, an independent Hungarian survey lands almost exactly on the central value.

A century of change: tall start, steady climb, early plateau

Hungary began the 20th century as one of the taller populations in Southern and Central Europe. Men born in 1896 averaged 166.3 cm, almost 4 cm taller than Greek men of the same year and 7 cm taller than Portuguese men.

The gains were large but less dramatic than in Southern Europe: 11.0 cm for men and 10.4 cm for women. Among 200 countries, that places Hungary 69th for men's gain and 60th for women's. The fastest growth for women came early: between the 1896 and 1936 cohorts they added almost 7 cm, then only 3.5 cm over the next sixty years.

The flattening is clear in the recent cohorts. In the year-by-year data, men's height reaches 177.3 cm with the 1989 cohort and stays there. Women add just 0.2 cm between the 1976 and 1996 cohorts. Because Greece grew much faster from a lower base, Greek and Hungarian men born in 1996 now have exactly the same estimated average height, 177.3 cm, despite a 3.8 cm gap a century earlier.

Three generations of Hungarians

Because the averages are tied to birth years, they translate neatly into family terms. A Hungarian grandparent born in the late 1940s, a parent born in the late 1960s and a grandchild born in the mid-1990s grew up in very different conditions, and the NCD-RisC estimates show it:

Between grandfather and grandson the average gain is about 4 cm. Between grandmother and granddaughter it is only 2.6 cm. In other words, most of the growth for Hungarian women happened before the Second World War cohorts, while men kept gaining for longer. That is why the gap between the sexes widened over the century, from 13.0 cm in the 1896 cohort and a low of about 11.6 cm in the 1936 cohort to 13.6 cm today.

The women's pattern is also why Hungary ranks lower for women than for men on the world table. Women in neighboring Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine kept growing faster in the second half of the century, adding 4 to 5 cm between the 1946 and 1996 cohorts, while Hungarian women added about 2.5 cm and their gains slowed to a few millimeters per decade. Only Austrian women, at about 1 cm, gained less over the same fifty years.

What a single national number hides

A national average does not describe any particular region, town or social group. Unlike the Greek conscript studies, the sources used here do not break Hungarian height down by region or income, so this page does not attempt to. The Semmelweis survey was designed to be representative, drawing boys from 90 settlements, but it reports only national results by age. Anyone looking for differences between Budapest and the countryside, or between social groups, would need studies that we have not been able to verify for this page.

Measured evidence: Hungarian schoolboys in 1980 and 2005

The best direct check on the NCD-RisC figures comes from a study by researchers at Semmelweis University's Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology in 2008. Zsófia Mészáros and colleagues compared two representative samples of boys aged roughly 6.5 to 18.5 years, measured in 1980 (13,061 boys) and 2005 (13,060 boys) in the same 90 Hungarian settlements. The same investigators took the measurements both times, which makes the comparison unusually clean.

Selected results from the study's first table:

The authors report that the height differences were statistically significant in all 12 age groups, mostly in the range of 2 to 3 cm, and attribute them to improved environmental conditions, in line with earlier Hungarian research on secular trends.

The headline number is the last row. Boys aged 18 in 2005, most of them born around 1987, averaged 177.31 cm. NCD-RisC's estimate for Hungarian men born in 1986 to 1989 is 177.3 cm. Two completely different methods, a single national survey and a global statistical model, arrive at the same figure. That gives good reason to trust the central estimate despite the wide credible interval.

Heavier as well as taller

The study's main purpose was to look at weight and fat, and those findings are less encouraging. Eighteen-year-olds weighed 67.34 kg on average in 1980 and 71.89 kg in 2005. Boys in 2005 had significantly more relative body fat, and overweight and obesity were markedly more common. The authors note that the rise in body mass was not proportionate to the rise in height, and they link the extra fat to a more inactive lifestyle and changed eating habits.

They also made a pointed observation about height itself. Because the rate of increase had not changed over the 25 years of their study, they wondered how large a gap still remained between Hungarians' actual height and their biological potential. Later NCD-RisC estimates suggest men's height levelled off soon afterwards.

Hungary compared with its neighbors

Hungary sits in the middle of the Carpathian Basin, surrounded by countries with very different height levels. Using the same NCD-RisC data for the 1996 cohort:

Of Hungary's seven neighbors, only Romania is shorter for both sexes. The gap with the former Yugoslav countries to the south is the largest: Croatian and Serbian men are more than 3 cm taller than Hungarian men, and Serbian and Slovak women are almost 4 cm taller than Hungarian women.

The Austrian comparison

Austria is a revealing comparison because the two countries share so much history. In the 1896 cohort, Austrian men (168.0 cm) were 1.7 cm taller than Hungarian men, and Austrian women (157.6 cm) were 4.3 cm taller than Hungarian women. Austria reached its peak earlier, with men at 177.9 cm in the 1976 cohort, and Austrian men's height has slipped slightly since. Hungary kept rising a little longer. The result is that men in the two countries are now essentially level, while Austrian women keep a smaller lead of 0.9 cm.

For the complete table, see average height by country.

Where Hungary sits globally

NCD-RisC's 2020 study of school-aged children in The Lancet found that the tallest 19-year-olds in the world in 2019 were in the Netherlands, with boys averaging 183.8 cm, and that the gap between the tallest and shortest countries was 20 cm or more. Hungarian men, at 177.3 cm for the 1996 cohort, are about 5 cm shorter than Dutch men of the same cohort (182.5 cm), but almost 17 cm taller than men in the shortest countries.

Practical notes

• Use measured data. Self-reported heights are less reliable than measurements like those in the Semmelweis study.
• Remember the cohort. Older Hungarians, particularly women born before the 1950s, are on average several centimeters shorter than today's young adults.
• Compare individuals properly. To see what percentile a height falls in, use the height percentile calculator; to compare two people, use the height difference calculator.
• Leave diagnosis to doctors. National averages are descriptive. A child's growth should be checked against growth charts by a pediatrician.

Key takeaways

• Hungarian men born in 1996 average 177.3 cm and women 163.7 cm (NCD-RisC), ranking 35th and 41st of 200.
• Hungary started the century relatively tall and gained about 11 cm for men and 10 cm for women, with men's height plateauing in cohorts born after the late 1980s.
• A 2005 survey of 18-year-old boys found 177.31 cm, matching the NCD-RisC estimate almost exactly.
• Boys of every age were 2 to 3 cm taller in 2005 than in 1980, but also heavier and fatter.
• Hungarians are shorter than their neighbors to the south and north, level with Austrians for men, and taller than Romanians.