Average Height in Senegal (Men & Women)

Senegal's average height

Senegal is one of the tallest countries in Africa, and for women it is the tallest. In the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) estimates used on this site, Senegalese men born in 1996 average 173.1 cm (5′8″) and Senegalese women 162.5 cm (5′4″). Worldwide, men rank 74th of 200 countries and women 52nd.

Within Africa, Senegalese women rank 1st of 53 countries, ahead of Libya and Seychelles (both 162.1 cm), and Senegalese men rank 5th, behind Seychelles, Tunisia, Libya and Cape Verde. The gap between men and women, 10.6 cm, is smaller than in most of the world, consistent with Our World in Data's observation that the sex gap in height is smallest across sub-Saharan Africa.

These values describe a birth cohort: people born in one year and measured as adults. NCD-RisC pooled 1,472 population-based studies that measured height in more than 18.6 million people, excluding self-reported data. For countries with fewer surveys, the model draws on information from the wider region, and the paper notes that limited data lead to wider uncertainty. To see how a specific height compares with Senegalese averages, try the height percentile calculator.

A century of change

Senegal started the 20th century tall, especially for women.

Senegalese women born in 1896, at 156.9 cm, ranked 12th of 200 countries for their generation in the site's data, taller than women in most European countries at the time. Between 1896 and 1956, men gained 7.4 cm and women 6.4 cm.

Gains then slowed and reversed slightly. Men peaked with the 1976 cohort at 175.4 cm and have since lost 2.3 cm. Women peaked at 163.4 cm in the same cohort and have lost 0.9 cm. Over the full century, Senegalese men are still 6.4 cm taller and women 5.6 cm taller than in 1896.

Senegal's decline is real but modest by regional standards. Neighboring Mauritania's men have lost 5.7 cm from their peak, the largest fall of any African country in the site's data, and several countries have lost 3 to 4 cm.

The sub-Saharan context

The NCD-RisC paper describes adult height falling or stagnating in many sub-Saharan countries for cohorts born after the early 1960s, by around 5 cm from the peak in some. It also notes earlier evidence that childhood stunting in sub-Saharan Africa kept rising until the mid-1990s. The 2020 NCD-RisC study in The Lancet, which followed children and adolescents up to 2019, found that the height of children and adolescents, especially boys, had stagnated or fallen since 1985 in many sub-Saharan countries.

Researchers have offered several explanations. Y. Akachi and D. Canning, writing in Economics and Human Biology in 2010, found that across sub-Saharan Africa infant mortality fell after 1961 while adult heights did not rise, and suggested that interventions which prevent infant deaths may have improved survival without improving nutrition. In an earlier study of women's height in 24 sub-Saharan countries for cohorts born between 1945 and 1985, the same authors found that changes in cohort height tracked infant mortality, income and protein intake at birth and in adolescence, while most of the differences between countries came from fixed factors their model could not explain. Our World in Data adds the possibility of selective survival: when fewer of the most malnourished children die, average adult height can fall even as health improves.

Senegal's milder decline, and its recent progress on child stunting described below, suggest it may be better placed than many neighbors to resume gains.

What national health surveys show

Senegal has run Demographic and Health Surveys since 1986. It now runs a Continuous DHS, led by the national statistics agency (ANSD) with the Ministry of Health and Social Action; the 2023 round was its eighth year. The surveys measure children under 5 and, in several rounds, women of reproductive age.

Short women are very rare

The share of Senegalese women shorter than 145 cm, a common threshold for short maternal stature, is among the lowest recorded by the DHS program:

For comparison, the equivalent figure in Guatemala's 2014–2015 survey was 25.3%. That gap illustrates what NCD-RisC's 13 cm difference between Senegalese and Guatemalan women looks like in practice.

Child stunting has fallen

Stunting, defined as height more than two standard deviations below the World Health Organization standard for a child's age, has dropped substantially:

The trend is not perfectly smooth, but the direction is clear. WHO modeled estimates, which smooth survey noise, show stunting falling from 24.6% in 2000 to 17.2% in 2024. A 2026 study in Maternal & Child Nutrition that pooled data from 19 sub-Saharan countries singled out Senegal and Ghana as West African countries that made notable progress, noting that Senegal reduced child stunting between 1992 and 2017 with population-wide gains in children's height-for-age and narrower gaps between rich and poor and between urban and rural areas.

Stunting in 2023: who is most affected

The 2023 Continuous DHS measured about 4,600 children under 5 and found 17.5% stunted and 4.0% severely stunted. The national figure hides large differences.

Stunting nearly triples between the capital and the most affected region. It also rises with age, from 12.7% in infants under 6 months to about 21% at 12–35 months, and it was higher among children who were very small at birth (27.1%) and children of mothers under 20 (21.4%).

Household wealth and the mother's schooling made an even bigger difference:

Children in the poorest households were more than three times as likely to be stunted as children in the richest, and about 13 times as likely to be severely stunted. The average height-for-age z-score ranged from −1.2 in the poorest fifth to −0.3 in the richest.

How the children were measured

Survey health workers weighed children on SECA electronic scales and measured them on graduated ShorrBoard measuring boards, after a standardization exercise to make sure measurers obtained consistent results. Children under 2 were measured lying down and older children standing. Measurements were taken in half of the sampled households.

These are the children who will become the adults of the 2040s. If stunting continues to fall, NCD-RisC estimates for future cohorts would be expected to rise again.

Senegal compared with the wider world

Senegal's women are tall by global standards, not only African ones. In the 1996 cohort, Senegalese women (162.5 cm) are about the same height as women in Romania (162.7 cm) and South Korea (162.3 cm), and taller than women in Brazil (160.9 cm), China (159.7 cm), Japan (158.3 cm) and Mexico (156.8 cm). Senegalese men, at 173.1 cm, are taller than men in Portugal (172.9 cm), China (171.8 cm) and Japan (170.8 cm).

The comparison was even more striking a century ago:

Senegalese women born in 1896 were taller than French, German and British women of the same generation. By 1996, those European countries had gained 10 to 11 cm and moved well ahead, while Senegal gained 5.6 cm. South Korea, which started 14.7 cm behind Senegal, has caught up completely. The table shows the central message of the NCD-RisC study: a century of sustained improvement in nutrition and health can transform a population's height, and countries where those improvements stalled were overtaken.

Our World in Data cautions that national averages reflect genetic as well as environmental differences between populations, so the comparison should not be read as a pure ranking of living standards. But the speed of change in countries like South Korea shows how much of the difference is environmental.

Senegal and its neighbors

Senegal is the tallest country in its immediate neighborhood for both sexes.

Mali, to the east, is the closest match, 2.0 cm shorter for both sexes. The Gambia, which is surrounded by Senegal, shows an unusual profile in the estimates: its women are nearly as tall as Senegal's, but its men are 7.7 cm shorter, leaving a sex gap of only 4.5 cm. Mauritania's men are almost 10 cm shorter than Senegal's, mostly because of their large recent decline.

Elsewhere in West Africa, Senegal is clearly taller than Nigeria (165.9 cm and 156.3 cm) and Ghana (168.8 cm and 157.9 cm). Ghana is the other West African country the 2026 Maternal & Child Nutrition study named for its progress against stunting. For the wider Sahel, see the Chad page, where heights have also fallen from a mid-century peak.

What Senegalese height means

An average Senegalese man at 173.1 cm is about 5′8″, and an average Senegalese woman at 162.5 cm is about 5′4″. A woman of 163 cm would be right at the Senegalese average; see the 163 cm page to compare that height worldwide.

Senegal combines a long history of relatively tall stature with recent, steady progress against childhood stunting. Compare it with any other country in the average height hub.