170 cm = 5 ft 6.9 in

170 cm in feet and inches

The inch has been exactly 25.4 mm since 1959. NIST explains that English-speaking nations agreed in 1958 to define their units in metric terms, with the new values in force from July 1, 1959. So for 170 cm:

1. 170 ÷ 2.54 = 66.929 inches
2. 66.929 ÷ 12 = 5.577, so 5 feet
3. 66.929 − 60 = 6.93 inches
4. 170 cm = 5′ 6.93″, which is 5′7″ to the nearest inch

An exact 5′7″ is 67 inches, or 170.18 cm, so 170 cm falls short of it by 1.8 mm. That is less than the thickness of a coin, and it means 170 cm and 5′7″ can be treated as the same height. In decimal feet it is 5.58 ft.

The 5′7″ to cm page has the reverse conversion.

The oldest "average" height

170 cm has a claim no other height can make. Our World in Data notes that the average height of adult men stayed around 170 cm for about two thousand years before rising sharply with modernity, particularly in the developed world. For most of recorded history, in other words, a 170 cm man was an ordinary man.

The modern world has moved away from that figure, but not far. Our World in Data puts the global average for men born in 1996 at about 171 cm, only a centimeter above 170. OWID also reports that men and women worldwide gained about 8 to 9 cm in average height over the past century. Many countries' men born in 1896 were well below 170 cm in NCD-RisC's estimates (156.2 cm in Japan, 159.3 cm in Iraq), so the modern world average of 171 cm reflects a century of catching up.

The average man in Japan, North Africa and the Middle East

The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) estimated average adult height for every country from 1,472 population studies and more than 18.6 million measured people. Men born in 1996 average within a centimeter of 170 cm in a wide band of countries:

Japan is the classic case. Japanese men gained about 15 cm between the 1896 and 1976 cohorts, then stopped: the 1996 cohort is slightly shorter. NCD-RisC notes that Japan's rise halted for people born after the early 1960s, one of the few countries outside the high-income West to plateau.

North Africa and the Middle East follow a peak-and-dip pattern. Algerian, Moroccan and Iraqi men born in 1976 averaged 171 to 172 cm, and those born in 1996 were 1 to 2 cm shorter. Kenyan men show a larger drop, 2.4 cm, consistent with the declines NCD-RisC reports in several sub-Saharan African countries.

Colombia and Thailand are still rising. Thai men gained 2.9 cm between the 1976 and 1996 cohorts, one of the faster recent increases in the table.

When 170 cm made America the tallest

The United States offers a useful contrast. NCD-RisC estimates that American men born in 1896 averaged 171.1 cm, already above 170 cm, at a time when men in Japan averaged 156.2 cm and men in Iraq 159.3 cm. A century ago, NCD-RisC notes, the US was among the tallest nations in the world. American men then gained about 6 cm, reaching 177.2 cm for the 1956 cohort, and have barely moved since (177.1 cm for those born in 1996). NCD-RisC describes the US as having the earliest plateau and the smallest gain of any high-income country, so that it now trails many European nations.

That history changes what 170 cm meant to an American over time. For men born in the late nineteenth century it was roughly average; for American men today it is the 25th percentile. The two Adams presidents listed below, born in the eighteenth century, sit close to that older average.

The average Latvian woman and the average Japanese man

One way to grasp how much heights differ between populations is to notice that, in NCD-RisC's 1996-cohort estimates, the average woman in Latvia (169.8 cm) and the average man in Japan (170.8 cm) are within a centimeter of each other, and both are close to 170 cm. Our World in Data reports that men are taller than women in every single country, by about 12 cm worldwide, so this kind of overlap only appears when comparing across countries. Within Latvia, men average 181.4 cm; within Japan, women average 158.3 cm.

Taller than every country's average woman

For women, 170 cm is tall everywhere. NCD-RisC reports that the tallest women born in 1996 are in Latvia, the Netherlands, Estonia and the Czech Republic, all averaging over 168 cm, with Latvia the highest at 169.8 cm in the site's data. So a 170 cm woman is taller than the average woman of every country in the dataset. Compared with the world average for women born in 1996, about 159 cm according to Our World in Data, she is 11 cm taller.

170 cm in the United States

NHANES, the measured survey run by the National Center for Health Statistics, published its August 2021–August 2023 percentiles in June 2025. CDC FastStats summarizes the averages as 68.9 inches (175 cm) for men and 63.5 inches (161.3 cm) for women.

Values are interpolated between published percentiles. The 95th percentile for women 80 and over was not published.

For men aged 20 and over, the published 25th percentile is exactly 170.0 cm, so a 170 cm man is taller than one American man in four. Among men over 80, 170 cm is the median (169.9 cm). For women, it puts a person in roughly the top tenth.

Famous people at 170 cm

The two Adams presidents, father and son, are listed within a centimeter of each other and of 170 cm. In their era, 170 cm was close to typical: NCD-RisC's estimates for American men born in 1896, more than a century after John Adams, average 171.1 cm.

The list also crosses sexes in a way only a few heights do. Beyoncé and Tom Cruise are listed 0.2 cm apart in our data: a tall woman and a slightly-below-average American man at virtually the same height.

Spud Webb: 5′7″ and a dunk title

Basketball's most famous 5′7″ player is Spud Webb. Drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the fourth round of the 1985 draft, he made the Atlanta Hawks roster after a tryout and went on to play from 1985 to 1998, appearing in 814 games and averaging 9.9 points. In 1986 he won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest. He later became president of basketball operations for the Texas Legends, the Dallas Mavericks' G League affiliate.

Characters at 170 cm

All three are women, and all three are listed taller than the average woman of any country in NCD-RisC's data.

Work and sport at 170 cm

• Horse racing. Flat-racing jockeys typically stand between about 147 cm and 170 cm, so 170 cm is at the top of the usual range. Jump jockeys are often taller, and the limit is riding weight rather than height.
• Modeling. The British Association of Model Agents has said female runway models should be 173 to 180 cm, so a 170 cm woman is 3 cm short of that minimum; petite models are described as under about 168 cm, so she is above that category too. Male runway models are preferred at about 180 to 188 cm.

Teen growth through 170 cm

The CDC's 2000 stature-for-age charts give a median and two shape parameters per month of age. Using the CDC's z-score method:

The median boy reaches 170 cm at almost exactly 15. Boys typically grow until about 18 or 19 and girls until about 15 or 16, according to Wikipedia's summary of growth research.

Couples and comparisons

In the 2013 PLOS ONE couple study by Stulp and colleagues, based on 12,502 British parents, the average partner difference was 14.11 cm and the man was taller in 92.5 percent of couples. A 170 cm man plus that average gap would suggest a partner of about 156 cm, near the 23rd percentile of American women in NHANES 2021–2023. The 5′0″ vs 5′7″ and 5′1″ vs 5′7″ comparisons show those pairings to scale.

Measuring at 170 cm

Because 170 cm and 5′7″ differ by under 2 mm, any error comes from the measurement, not the conversion. Height varies over the day: a study cited in Wikipedia's human height article found children lost an average of 1.54 cm between getting up and late afternoon. For a reliable number, stand barefoot on a hard floor with heels, buttocks and shoulders touching a wall, look straight ahead, rest a flat book on your head square to the wall, mark beneath it and measure with a steel tape. Measure at the same time of day whenever you compare readings, then use the height difference calculator or the 3D comparison tool to see 170 cm next to anyone.