Average Height in Russia (Men & Women)

Average height in Russia

Russian men born in 1996 reach an average adult height of 176.5 cm (5′9″), and Russian women 165.3 cm (5′5″). These are estimates from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), a global consortium of health researchers. In 2016 they analyzed 1,472 population-based measurement studies, covering more than 18.6 million people, to estimate adult height for every birth year from 1896 to 1996 in 200 countries.

Russia is a tall country, and Russian women stand out in particular. Russian men rank 42nd of 200, but Russian women rank 23rd. The difference between the sexes, 11.2 cm, is smaller than in the United States (13.6 cm) or Japan (12.5 cm).

The site's 176 cm page is a close match for the average Russian man, and 165 cm for the average Russian woman.

How the estimates work

NCD-RisC estimates the mean height of a birth cohort at age 18. "Born in 1996" therefore describes the youngest generation in the study, not the average of all Russian adults today. Older Russians grew up in very different times and are, on average, shorter.

The consortium accepted only surveys that measured height directly, using probability samples of the general population, and excluded studies of special groups. A Bayesian hierarchical model then combined the data. The model shares information among countries in the same region and super-region, which helps estimate years or places with fewer surveys. For the earliest cohorts, much of the data comes from people who were already old when they were measured. The paper explains that this is why raw measurements for those cohorts sit below the modeled height at age 18, and the model accounts for the age at which each group was measured.

A century of Russian height

Over the century, Russian men gained 9.5 cm and Russian women 11.7 cm. The timing is distinctive:

• 1896 to 1926: slow growth for men (+2.1 cm) but fast growth for women (+4.9 cm).
• 1926 to 1956: the biggest jump for men, +5.2 cm in 30 years, with women adding 3.8 cm.
• 1956 to 1976: continued gains of about 2 cm for both sexes.
• 1976 to 1996: a plateau for men (+0.1 cm), while women still added 1.2 cm.

NCD-RisC places Russia within a wider European pattern. After height increases stopped for two to three decades in Northern European countries like Finland and in English-speaking countries like the UK, the paper notes, a similar plateau followed in Eastern Europe. The flat line for Russian men born between 1976 and 1996 fits that description.

Women outpacing men

Russian women's gains over the century were larger than men's by more than 2 cm. That is why the sex gap fell from 13.4 cm in the 1896 cohort to 11.2 cm in the 1996 cohort, and why Russian women now rank higher internationally than Russian men. The pattern is not unique to Russia. NCD-RisC found the largest gain of any population in South Korean women. Still, it sets Russia apart from countries like the United States, where men and women gained similar amounts.

Russia and the United States: closing a century-old gap

A century ago, Americans were among the tallest people in the world and Russians were well behind. NCD-RisC's estimates show how much that changed.

Russian men closed a 4.1 cm gap to just 0.6 cm. Russian women went from 4.9 cm shorter than American women to 1.8 cm taller. NCD-RisC describes the United States as having the smallest gain in height of any high-income country, so part of this convergence is American stagnation. Most of it is Russian growth. The United States page covers the American side.

Measuring Russia: the RLMS-HSE survey

The best-known source of measured body data in post-Soviet Russia is the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE), run by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow with the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina. It is a long-running household panel survey, and its data files now run from 1994 to 2025.

According to the survey's 2016 data resource profile in the International Journal of Epidemiology, the RLMS was created to track the effects of the sweeping economic reforms Russia introduced from January 1992. Those reforms included removing most food subsidies and moving to market prices. The authors explain that the existing statistics, including a Family Budget Survey, were judged unreliable, and that diet, anthropometry and other health behaviors were not being measured in a nationally representative way.

The RLMS has an interesting history. According to the profile, it was first set up in 1992 at the initiative of the G-7 countries to obtain objective, nationally representative data on Russia's social, health and economic situation, and was modeled on the China Health and Nutrition Survey. Its first phase, four rounds that were later discontinued, was described as the first nationally representative random sample of economic and health data ever collected in Russia. Earlier sampling had relied on quotas from enterprises and other organizations. The ongoing panel, Phase II, began in 1994. The Higher School of Economics began funding it in 2010, when the name changed to RLMS-HSE. The survey was designed to run every year, but funding gaps meant no rounds were held in 1997 and 1999.

How the sample is built

The design is intended to represent the whole Russian Federation:

• A list of 1,850 districts (raions) covering 95.6% of the population served as the primary sampling units.
• These were grouped into 38 strata based mainly on geography and urbanization, and on ethnicity where it varied a lot.
• Moscow city, Moscow Oblast and St Petersburg were included with certainty because of their size.
• A total of 98 primary sampling units were selected, with a target of about 4,000 households.
• Interviewers questioned every household member aged 14 and over they could reach. Information about younger children came from adults in the household.

For height, the key point is that the RLMS used direct measurement of weight, height and waist circumference in selected rounds (rounds V–XIV and XX), alongside 24-hour dietary recall. Measured data like this is what large pooled studies such as NCD-RisC rely on, rather than self-reported heights, which tend to be biased.

The profile also documents the survey's weaknesses. Non-response was highest in Moscow and St Petersburg, and participants in those cities stayed in the panel for shorter periods. Because of that attrition, the sample was replenished several times in the two capitals and once in a few other cities. Interviewers had to visit each selected dwelling up to three times and were not allowed to substitute other households.

Why Russian height rose and then leveled off

Our World in Data, reviewing the research, explains that adult height is a cumulative record of nutrition and disease in childhood. Researchers have used it as a proxy for "biological standards of living." Its summary also notes that a study of 105 countries found height and the Human Development Index largely interchangeable as indicators of well-being. Russia's large gains for cohorts born between the 1920s and 1970s are consistent with improving childhood conditions over that period.

Historical height data for Russia, as for most of Europe, comes heavily from soldiers. Our World in Data cautions that conscript records can be biased. Soldiers, like the other groups that dominate historical height records, may not represent the wider population. NCD-RisC avoids these problems for its 1896–1996 estimates by using only representative population surveys.

NCD-RisC also offers a reason the trend matters for health. In countries with reliable death records, including the Russian Federation, it found that cohorts that gained more height also saw larger falls in the risk of dying between ages 50 and 70. The correlation was −0.58 for men and −0.68 for women. The study did not single out Russia's mortality trends, but it is a reminder that height tracks the same childhood conditions that shape adult health.

Russia among its neighbors

Russia sits between two very different neighborhoods. To the west, the Baltic states are among the tallest nations on Earth. NCD-RisC lists Estonia and Latvia among the countries where men born in 1996 exceed 181 cm, and Latvia and Estonia among those where women exceed 168 cm. Ukraine and Belarus are about 2 cm taller than Russia for men and 1 cm taller for women. To the south and east, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia and China are 5–7 cm shorter. NCD-RisC also notes that in parts of Central Asia, including Azerbaijan, men's height has recently fallen. The average height by country hub has all 200 countries.

Tall Russians and everyday Russia

Russia has produced many tall athletes. Tennis champion Maria Sharapova is listed on this site at 188 cm (6′2″), about 23 cm above the average for Russian women of the 1996 cohort.

In everyday terms, a Russian man of average height stands about 176–177 cm and a woman about 165 cm. A Russian woman of 170 cm is tall at home but not exceptional, while the same height would be very tall in Japan or India. To see where a specific height falls against reference data, try the height percentile calculator.

Russia's height story can be told in three phases: catching up through the middle of the 20th century, then leveling off for men, while women kept inching upward. Data for cohorts born after 1996 will show whether that plateau holds.