Star Wars Character Heights

Where Star Wars heights come from

Star Wars doesn't have a single databook. Its official character heights are scattered across decades of Lucasfilm reference books, and Wookieepedia, the Star Wars fan encyclopedia, records which book each figure comes from. The main sources for the heights on this page are:

• The StarWars.com Databank, Lucasfilm's online encyclopedia, used for Han Solo, Yoda, Mace Windu and Boba Fett.
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary, which covers characters active in the sequel trilogy: Luke, Leia, Rey, Kylo Ren, C-3PO and R2-D2.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Character Encyclopedia – Join the Battle!, used for Chewbacca, Padmé Amidala and Darth Vader's armored height.
• Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide, for Obi-Wan Kenobi and the young Leia.
• Star Wars: Character Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Edition, for the Mandalorian Din Djarin and Grogu.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Head-to-Head, which supplies several weights.

Wookieepedia lists heights in meters first, so the feet-and-inches figures below are conversions.

Star Wars heights compared

The site's Star Wars list covers 17 characters, from a 34 cm infant to a 228 cm Wookiee.

The heaviest human-sized figure is Vader in armor at 120 kg. Wookieepedia cites that number to Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know.

Chewbacca: the tallest in the list

Chewbacca is 2.28 m (7′6″) and 112 kg (247 lb), according to Wookieepedia. Wikipedia's article on the character gives the same 7.5 feet and describes Wookiees as a tall, hairy, highly intelligent species from the planet Kashyyyk.

The height on screen started with casting. Wikipedia reports that Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in the original trilogy, the 1978 Holiday Special and Revenge of the Sith, was cast primarily for his height of 7 ft 3 in (about 221 cm). That is about 7 cm less than Chewbacca's official figure, a gap the suit and its hair would cover. Mayhew shared the role with his body double, Joonas Suotamo, in The Force Awakens, and Suotamo took over after Mayhew retired in 2017, playing Chewbacca in The Last Jedi, Solo and The Rise of Skywalker.

Darth Vader and the Skywalker family

Darth Vader's figure depends on what he is wearing. Wookieepedia lists Anakin Skywalker at 1.35 m (4′5″) as a boy, 1.88 m (6′2″) as an adult, and 2.03 m (6′8″) in Darth Vader's armor. The site stores 203 cm because that is the height of the character audiences know as Vader.

The towering silhouette was planned from the beginning. Wikipedia recounts that George Lucas asked concept artist Ralph McQuarrie to depict a "very tall, dark fluttering figure" for Vader. In the original trilogy, Vader was physically played by David Prowse; Wikipedia notes that Prowse had originally been offered the part of Chewbacca and turned it down because he wanted to play the villain.

The rest of the family is much shorter. Both twins' adult heights come from The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary:

Luke is 16 cm shorter than his unarmored father, and Leia is 17 cm shorter than Luke.

The role of Vader has also passed between several performers, which is one reason the armored height is the most useful reference. Wikipedia lists David Prowse in the suit for the original trilogy, James Earl Jones as the voice across the films, Hayden Christensen as Vader in Revenge of the Sith, and Sebastian Shaw as the unmasked Anakin in Return of the Jedi, chosen because the filmmakers wanted a more experienced actor for that scene. Whoever is inside, the official 2.03 m describes the figure on screen. Wookieepedia also lists a childhood height of 1.22 m (4 ft) for Leia, from Dawn of Rebellion.

Kylo Ren, at 1.89 m and 89 kg, is the tallest of the family's later generations and 1 cm taller than his grandfather out of the armor. Wikipedia notes that he is portrayed by Adam Driver in all three sequel trilogy films; the site lists Driver at 189 cm, the same as the character's official height.

Jedi, Sith and bounty hunters

Among the Jedi, Mace Windu is the tallest at 1.92 m, from the StarWars.com Databank. Obi-Wan Kenobi is 1.81 m (5′10.5″) and 81 kg in Dawn of Rebellion. The site's other Jedi, Luke and Yoda, are far shorter.

Darth Maul is listed at 1.75 m, but Wookieepedia records a second figure of 1.94 m after he was given cybernetic legs, cited to a French edition of a Star Wars bust collection. The site uses his original height.

Boba Fett is 1.83 m and 78 kg. The Mandalorian, Din Djarin, is 1.8 m (5′11″), exactly as tall as Han Solo, whose 1.8 m and 80 kg come from the Databank and Head-to-Head. Rey, from the sequel trilogy, is 1.7 m and 54 kg.

Droids, Yoda and Grogu

The smallest figures in the list are not human at all.

• C-3PO is 1.77 m and 75 kg, taller than Luke.
• R2-D2 is 1.08 m and 32 kg.
• Yoda is 0.66 m and 13 kg, according to the Databank. Wikipedia explains that in The Empire Strikes Back he was a puppet operated by Frank Oz, with a team of puppeteers moving his eyes, ears and body, and that a digital Yoda later replaced the prequel puppet.
• Grogu is 0.34 m (1′1″), from the updated Character Encyclopedia. Wikipedia describes him as mostly a work of animatronics and puppetry, enhanced with computer-generated imagery, with the puppet designed by Legacy Effects.

Grogu standing next to Chewbacca would not even reach the Wookiee's knee.

Size and age: why small doesn't mean young

Star Wars repeatedly pairs small bodies with long lives, and Wookieepedia's ages make the point clearly.

Grogu is the best example. Wookieepedia recounts that when Din Djarin first saw the infant, he was confused, because he had been told his target was 50 years old; IG-11 explained that Grogu must age unusually. Even at fifty standard years, Grogu looked and behaved like a toddler, standing just 0.34 meters tall. Grogu belongs to the same species as Yoda, and Yoda, at roughly 900 years old, had only reached 66 cm.

Yoda's small size was a design decision. Wookieepedia notes that early concepts imagined him as a large alien before the Episode V design team reinvented him as a tiny, gnome- or elf-like figure. It also records that despite his size and age, he was an accomplished lightsaber duelist with a short green blade. For his digital lightsaber fights in the prequels, Wookieepedia says Rob Coleman's team consulted stunt coordinator Nick Gillard about how a combatant would fight with small weapons, and Wikipedia adds that a radio-controlled puppet was used in The Empire Strikes Back for the scenes where Yoda rides on Luke's back.

Chewbacca is old as well as tall. Wookieepedia gives his birth as 200 BBY on Kashyyyk, and in Solo he tells Han he is 190 years old, to which Han replies that he looks great. Size, in this galaxy, tells you very little about age.

How Star Wars heights compare with real people

The characters aren't from Earth, but comparing them with real averages shows how the human cast was imagined. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration's 2016 eLife study gives men born in 1996 in the United States a mean height of 177.1 cm and women 163.5 cm; in the United Kingdom, 177.5 cm and 164.4 cm.

Han is slightly above average, Luke is a little below it, and Leia is the shortest human adult in the list. The UK figures tell almost the same story: Han would be 2.5 cm above the British male average, Luke 5.5 cm below it, and Leia 9.4 cm below the British female average. The Skywalker men are a mixed group: Anakin and Kylo are tall by any standard, while Luke is not.

Using these figures

• Armor and cybernetics change heights. Vader's 203 cm includes his armor, and Maul's 194 cm figure includes cybernetic legs.
• Ages matter. Anakin and Leia both have childhood heights on record, 1.35 m and 1.22 m.
• Sources differ in date. A Databank figure and a Visual Dictionary figure may have been set years apart, so very small gaps may not be meaningful.

To see Chewbacca, Vader and Grogu at full scale, put them side by side in the 3D height comparison tool, or measure the gap between any two with the height difference calculator.