Average Height in Taiwan (Men & Women)

How tall are Taiwanese people?

Taiwan has one of the strongest height growth records in Asia. The site's figures come from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), which estimates that Taiwanese born in 1996 average 174.5 cm (5′8.5″) for men and 161.5 cm (5′3.5″) for women. In the site's table of 200 countries and territories, Taiwanese men rank 57th and Taiwanese women 68th.

What makes Taiwan unusual is that the growth hadn't stopped by the end of the century. Men born in 1996 were 3.3 cm taller than men born in 1976, and women 2.4 cm taller. Japan, by contrast, stopped gaining height decades ago. Taiwan also runs a long-standing national nutrition survey that measures height, which lets us compare the international estimate with local data.

This article covers the estimate, the century-long trend from the Japanese colonial era onwards, what Taiwan's own survey shows, and how Taiwan compares with its neighbors.

How the estimate was made

Taiwanese institutions took part directly: Academia Sinica, National Taiwan University and the Ministry of Health and Welfare are listed among the NCD-RisC collaborators. The study accepted only measured heights, and Taiwan's numbers show one of the steadiest climbs in Asia, with men gaining 13.2 cm between the 1896 and 1996 cohorts, from 161.3 cm to 174.5 cm.

The averages refer to birth cohorts: people born in a given year, estimated at about age 18. A Bayesian hierarchical model combined each country's own surveys with information from other years and from other countries in the same region. Countries with more data, like Taiwan, depend mostly on their own measurements.

A century of growth

Over the century, Taiwanese men gained 13.2 cm and women 12.1 cm, well above the 8 to 9 cm global gain that Our World in Data reports. The growth was remarkably steady: men added between 3.1 and 3.6 cm in each period shown, and gained as much between 1976 and 1996 as between 1896 and 1926. Women's gains were a little larger in the middle of the century and slightly smaller at the end.

That steady pace contrasts with many richer countries, where height plateaued long before 1996. Taiwan's curve is still pointing upward in the last cohort, which suggests that people born after 1996 may be taller still.

The colonial era: when growth began

During the period of Japanese rule, the colonial authorities collected height and weight data that historians have since used to reconstruct living standards. Kenneth Olds, writing in Economics and Human Biology in 2003, analyzed Taiwanese heights recorded between 1921 and 1931 to trace the biological standard of living from 1842 to 1931. He found:

• In the late Qing period, adult heights were not increasing over time.
• People born after the Japanese takeover began to get taller rapidly.
• Children's heights confirm that the growth continued through the 1920s.
• Body mass index, however, did not increase in the 1920s.
• By most measures, living standards were better in the north of the island.
• Compared with modern data, heights have continued to increase since.

Olds's findings fit the NCD-RisC series, which shows a 3.6 cm gain for men between the 1896 and 1926 cohorts. They also show that Taiwan's long rise in height started early in the twentieth century.

What Taiwan's national survey shows

Taiwan's Health Promotion Administration commissions the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (NAHSIT), a long-term monitoring system for public health and nutrition that's used to inform health policy. According to a 2024 Taipei Times report on its latest results, the 2017–2020 round found:

Average height rose in every adult age group the survey reports: 19 to 44, 45 to 64, and 65 and over. Part of that is likely a generational effect, as taller younger cohorts move into each age band and shorter older ones move out.

Teenagers and small samples

The survey also reports single-year ages for teenagers aged 13 to 18, and nearly all of them grew taller between the two rounds. There were two exceptions:

• 18-year-old men averaged 173.3 cm in 2013–2016 but 172.1 cm in 2017–2020.
• 15-year-old women slid from 160.5 cm to 159.4 cm.

These drew some headlines, but the Taipei Times pointed out that the single-age groups had only 41 to 79 people each, compared with more than 1,500 in the other age groups. Small samples like these can easily move by a centimeter from chance alone. The same report cited a Chinese-language United Daily News article noting that 18-year-old women had risen from 160.7 cm to 161.2 cm.

Experts' views on the trend

The Taipei Times report included comments from two pediatricians, which are opinions rather than survey findings. Lee Hung-chang, chairman of the Taiwan Pediatric Association, said that in his clinical observation Taiwanese girls have grown taller in recent years, possibly because more girls now exercise and eat a balanced diet as gender stereotypes loosen. Another association member, Peng Chun-chih, said many factors determine adult height and that medical experts suspect environmental hormones may be one, though the evidence isn't conclusive. Childhood obesity, linked to poor diets, long screen time and late nights, was also raised as a possible influence on growth hormones.

Why the two sources give different numbers

NAHSIT's 169.3 cm for men and 157.0 cm for women is the average of all adults aged 19 and over. NCD-RisC's 174.5 cm and 161.5 cm describe a single birth year at about age 18. Because Taiwanese grew so much taller over the century, the all-adult average is pulled down heavily by older people: men born in 1956 were 6.5 cm shorter than men born in 1996 in the NCD-RisC series.

The closest like-for-like comparison is with NAHSIT's 18-year-olds. Its 2017–2020 figure for 18-year-old women, 161.2 cm, is almost identical to the NCD-RisC estimate of 161.5 cm. For 18-year-old men, NAHSIT's 172.1 cm is 2.4 cm below NCD-RisC's 174.5 cm, but that NAHSIT group was one of the tiny samples described above, and the earlier round's 173.3 cm is closer. The two sources are broadly consistent once age is taken into account.

Taiwan and its neighbors

NCD-RisC estimates for East and Southeast Asia (1996 birth cohort):

Taiwanese men are just 0.4 cm shorter than South Korean men and nearly 4 cm taller than Japanese men. The NCD-RisC paper explains the shift in East Asia: the rise in Japanese height stopped for people born after the early 1960s, South Korean men began to level off with cohorts born in the 1980s, and growth was continuing in China and Thailand. Taiwan fits between these patterns, still growing quickly in the last cohort.

Taiwan and Japan: a reversal

The comparison with Japan is especially striking given Taiwan's colonial history:

In the 1896 cohort, Taiwanese men were 5 cm taller than Japanese men and Taiwanese women 7 cm taller. Japan then grew much faster and pulled slightly ahead for men by 1956. After Japan's growth stopped, Taiwan surged back in front, and by 1996 Taiwanese men led by 3.7 cm.

Taiwan, China and Hong Kong

Taiwan's growth is also distinctive compared with other Chinese-speaking populations in the NCD-RisC data:

Men in Taiwan and mainland China were the same height in the 1896 cohort and again in the 1956 cohort. The two then diverged: Taiwanese men born in 1996 are 2.7 cm taller than mainland Chinese men of the same age. Hong Kong followed a path close to Taiwan's, gaining 13.9 cm over the century against Taiwan's 13.2 cm. The NCD-RisC paper notes that heights were still rising in China for the latest cohorts, so the gap may narrow for people born after 1996.

The gap between Taiwanese men and women

Taiwanese men born in 1996 are 13.0 cm taller than Taiwanese women, slightly more than the global gap of about 12 cm. Through most of the century the gap stayed between 11.3 and 12.1 cm, then widened in the last period because men gained 3.3 cm between the 1976 and 1996 cohorts while women gained 2.4 cm.

That runs against the pattern in South Korea, where Our World in Data reports the gap between men and women narrowing from 18 cm to 13 cm over the century as women's heights rose faster. In Taiwan, women started out much closer to men and the gap has changed little. Lee Hung-chang, the pediatrician quoted in the 2024 Taipei Times report, believes girls have been growing taller recently, which would narrow the gap again in younger cohorts, but the national survey data for single ages are too sparse to confirm it.

Taiwanese heights in everyday terms

An average Taiwanese man born in 1996 stands 174.5 cm, about 5′8.5″, noticeably above the global male average of 171 cm reported by Our World in Data. An average woman, at 161.5 cm, is about 5′3.5″, compared with a global female average of 159 cm.

To see where an individual height falls, use the height percentile calculator, or convert on the cm to feet page for 175 cm. The average height hub compares Taiwan with every other country.

Taiwan's height record is one of steady, century-long improvement: heights began rising under Japanese rule in the early twentieth century and were still rising for people born in the 1990s. National survey data suggest the trend has continued into the 2010s, with every adult age group a little taller than before.