Average Height in Iraq (Men & Women)

Iraq's average height at a glance

Iraqi men born in 1996 average 170.4 cm (5′7″) and Iraqi women 158.7 cm (5′2½″), according to estimates from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), the source this site uses for every country. Iraq ranks 107th of 200 countries for men and 108th for women, almost exactly in the middle of the world distribution.

Iraq also has its own measured data. In 2015, the Ministry of Health ran a national survey that weighed and measured nearly 4,000 adults, and its results line up closely with the international estimates. This guide explains both sources, traces a century of change in Iraqi height, looks at the recent stall in men's growth, and compares Iraq with its neighbors.

How the international estimates work

Iraq's averages are model estimates from the NCD-RisC study published in eLife in 2016, which combined measured surveys from around the world and excluded self-reported height because it tends to be biased upward. For Iraqi men the model gives 159.3 cm for the 1896 birth cohort, a peak of 171.3 cm for the 1976 cohort and 170.4 cm for those born in 1996.

Each figure describes a birth cohort. The 170.4 cm headline is the estimate for Iraqi men born in 1996, not for all Iraqi men alive today. That matters, because the average for the whole adult population includes older people who are typically shorter.

Coverage varies by country and period. NCD-RisC notes that only 72 countries had any data for people born in 1920 or earlier, so the earliest figures for many countries, Iraq among them, rely more on the model and should be read as broad estimates.

A century of change

Across the century, Iraqi men gained 11.1 cm and women 9.0 cm. The fastest growth came early. Men born in 1926 were 5.7 cm taller than men born in 1896, and men born in 1956 another 4.5 cm taller. Women's gains followed a similar but slightly smaller path.

The gains then slowed and, for men, reversed. Men born in 1976 reached 171.3 cm, the peak of the series. Men born in 1996 average 170.4 cm, 0.9 cm shorter. Women born in 1976 and 1996 have exactly the same estimated average, 158.7 cm. As a result, the gap between the sexes, which had widened from 9.6 cm to 12.6 cm, narrowed again to 11.7 cm.

A regional pattern, not just an Iraqi one

The stall in men's height is not unique to Iraq. The NCD-RisC paper observes that in some countries of North Africa and the Middle East, including Egypt and Yemen, men's height declined or stagnated in recent cohorts while women's did not. Iraq's pattern, with men losing a little and women holding steady, fits that description.

The same paper points out a striking contrast next door. Iranian men gained 16.5 cm over the century, the largest increase among men anywhere in the world, and height in Iran was still rising for both sexes in the latest cohorts. In the site data, Iranian men born in 1896 averaged 157.1 cm, 2.2 cm shorter than Iraqi men of the same cohort; by 1996 they averaged 173.6 cm, 3.2 cm taller.

The sources reviewed for this page don't attribute Iraq's stall to a specific cause. In general, Our World in Data explains that adult height reflects nutrition and health in childhood, especially in the first two years of life, when most stunting occurs. Children born in 1996 grew up through the late 1990s and early 2000s; the World Bank series for that period shows high stunting, discussed below.

Iraq's 2015 STEPS survey

The most detailed modern source on Iraqi adult height is the Noncommunicable Diseases Risk Factors STEPS Survey Iraq 2015. It was the second round of Iraq's STEPS survey, carried out in November and December 2015 by the Ministry of Health's Directorate of Public Health jointly with the Ministry of Planning's Central Statistical Organization, in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

Who was measured

The survey covered adults aged 18 and over in urban and rural areas, using a sampling frame based on a 2009 listing of households. Because of unstable conditions at the time, three governorates, Naynawa, Salahaddin and Al-Anbar, were excluded, leaving 15 of Iraq's 18 governorates. The report notes that population movement after 2009 was a major challenge.

Of a planned sample of 4,120, 4,071 people took part, a response rate of 98.8%. Of those, 98.6% agreed to the second step, which included blood pressure, height, weight, waist circumference and eyesight tests. Height and weight scales were supplied by the Nutrition Research Institute in Baghdad and nutrition units in the governorate health directorates.

What it found

Overall, men averaged 171.3 cm and women 157.5 cm. The report notes "an evident sex related differences in the mean height in favor of men," and shortening of stature after age 60 in both sexes. Men aged 60 and over were 4.3 cm shorter than men aged 18 to 39, and women aged 60 and over 2.5 cm shorter than the youngest group.

Comparing STEPS with NCD-RisC

The two sources agree closely on the broad picture, with some differences in detail. STEPS men aged 18 to 39 measured 172.1 cm, compared with the NCD-RisC estimates of 171.3 cm for men born in 1976 and 170.4 cm for men born in 1996. STEPS women aged 18 to 39 measured 157.6 cm, compared with 158.7 cm in NCD-RisC.

Several factors can explain gaps of a centimeter or so. STEPS adults aged 18 to 39 in 2015 were born between about 1976 and 1997, so the group straddles both NCD-RisC cohorts. STEPS left out three governorates, and NCD-RisC combines many surveys through a model rather than using any one directly. Neither source is wrong; they are different windows onto the same population.

One detail in the STEPS table is interesting in light of the NCD-RisC trend. Women aged 40 to 59 measured slightly taller, 158.2 cm, than women aged 18 to 39, 157.6 cm. That small difference is consistent with women's height having leveled off for recent cohorts, although the confidence intervals overlap and it shouldn't be read as a firm decline.

Weight and body mass

The same survey measured weight. Men averaged 79.1 kg and women 73.6 kg, and both peaked in the 40 to 59 age group. Average body mass index was 26.9 for men and 29.4 for women, and 28.1 for the whole sample. The report suggested that women's shorter stature helps explain why their BMI was higher even though they weighed less.

Applying the WHO cut-offs, the survey classified a third of respondents as obese (33.5%, a BMI of 30 or more) and nearly another third as overweight (31.9%). Among women, obesity was more common than overweight, 42.6% against 30.6%. These figures show why measured height matters well beyond curiosity: BMI divides weight by height squared, so any error in height feeds straight into estimates of obesity. A survey that relied on self-reported height, which tends to run high, would understate BMI and the share of people classed as obese.

Our World in Data notes that the WHO recommends height as a measure to help predict health, performance and survival, and that height can stand in for living standards where other data are thin. In a year when three governorates could not be surveyed for security reasons, a carefully run measurement survey such as STEPS is one of the most direct readings of adult health available.

A note on the survey dates

The report's executive summary gives the fieldwork period as November to December 2015, while its fact sheet describes the survey as carried out from August to December 2015. Either way, the measurements describe Iraqi adults in the second half of 2015. The fact sheet also describes the design as a multi-stage cluster sample, stratified into urban and rural areas, intended to be representative of adults aged 18 and over in the areas covered. It said a repeat survey was planned for 2018 if funding was secured.

Child growth in Iraq

Childhood stunting is one of the clearest early signals of how tall a generation will become. World Bank figures for Iraq show the share of children under 5 who are too short for their age:

The series has some irregular points, including a figure of 20.0% for 2004 that sits well below its neighbors, and estimates from different surveys aren't always comparable. But the overall direction is clear: stunting was high, around a quarter to a third of young children, through the 1990s and early 2000s, then fell to 12.6% by 2018. Children who were stunted in the earlier period are now young adults, which fits the flat height of the 1996 cohort. The drop by 2018 suggests later cohorts may grow taller, though this site's data stop at people born in 1996.

Iraq and its neighbors

Iraq sits in the middle of its region. Iraqi men are 3.8 cm shorter than Turkish men and 3.2 cm shorter than Iranian men, but 2.7 cm taller than Saudi men. Iraq and Syria are almost identical, with the same average for men and a 0.1 cm difference for women. Jordan and Kuwait are within about 1.7 cm.

The sharpest contrast is with Iran. A century ago, Iraqi men were slightly taller. Iran's sustained growth and Iraq's stall reversed that, and today the gap is 3.2 cm.

Practical context

An average Iraqi man born in 1996 is about 5′7″, very close to the 170 cm page, and an average Iraqi woman about 5′2½″. Because the STEPS survey found little difference between men aged 18 to 39 and those aged 40 to 59, about 1.4 cm, the average Iraqi man of working age stands somewhere between 170 cm and 172 cm.

To see how your own height compares with Iraqi men or women born in 1996, use the height percentile calculator. For rankings of all 200 countries, visit the average height hub.