5′11″ in cm = 180.34 cm

The 5′11″ conversion

Five feet eleven inches is 71 inches, since 5 × 12 = 60 and 60 + 11 = 71. At exactly 2.54 cm per inch, that equals 180.34 cm, or 1.80 m. The National Institute of Standards and Technology confirms that the inch has been defined as exactly 0.0254 meters since the 1959 international yard and pound agreement, so the conversion involves no approximation.

Rounded to whole centimeters, 5′11″ is 180 cm. The match is close enough, 3.4 millimeters, that "5′11″" and "180 cm" are effectively synonyms. 180 cm converts back to 70.87 inches and 181 cm to 71.26 inches, both of which round to 5′11″. The 180 cm page explores the metric side, including why 180 cm is such a common height on profiles.

5′11″ is one inch short of six feet, and in decimal feet it is 5.917, not 5.11. Writing "5.11 ft" would describe a height of about 5′1″.

5′11″ among Americans

The CDC's NHANES survey measured a nationally representative sample of US adults between August 2021 and August 2023. Interpolating between its published height percentiles:

A 5′11″ man is taller than roughly three in four American men. He is about 5 cm (2 inches) above the median, which is noticeable in a group, yet about one man in four is still taller. The share varies by age band: men in their forties, the age group with the highest upper percentiles in this survey, put 5′11″ around the 66th percentile, while among men in their seventies it is closer to the 86th. Because the survey is a snapshot, those age differences combine gradual height loss with the shorter heights of older birth cohorts.

For women, 5′11″ is very tall. NHANES puts the 95th percentile for women aged 20 and over at 172.5 cm, nearly 8 cm below 5′11″, and on the CDC age-20 growth chart 5′11″ is around the 99.6th percentile. The height percentile calculator runs the same comparison for any height and age group.

The height that fit a Mercury capsule

The most famous height rule in American history put its line exactly at 5′11″. According to NASA, the military test pilots selected as the first astronauts in 1959 had to be shorter than 5′11″ to fit in the Mercury spacecraft. The rule was an engineering constraint rather than a preference: the capsule simply could not accommodate a taller occupant.

The limit was enforced. During screening, several candidates were eliminated for being over the height limit; in one round, six of 69 candidates failed on height alone. Of the seven men selected, Alan Shepard, who would become the first American in space, was the tallest at exactly the 5′11″ maximum, while Gus Grissom was the shortest at 5′7″. The capsule also set a 180-pound weight ceiling. Today NASA's published astronaut requirements focus on a STEM master's degree or equivalent, professional or flight experience, and passing the long-duration flight physical.

The average president

The average height of US presidents is approximately 5′11″ (180 cm), according to the standard compilation of presidential heights. The range runs from James Madison at 5′4″ to Abraham Lincoln at about 6′4″. On this site, Woodrow Wilson and Grover Cleveland are listed at 180 cm and Dwight D. Eisenhower at 179.5 cm, all at or within half a centimeter of the presidential average.

Whether height helps in elections is debated. A 2013 study found that significantly taller candidates were more likely to win the popular vote, but that the number of taller candidates who won the presidency did not differ significantly from chance. Workplace research shows a similar pattern of real but modest effects. A 2004 meta-analysis by Timothy Judge and Daniel Cable found that height correlated with leader emergence (about 0.24) and social esteem (about 0.41), and that in four large samples it remained positively related to income after controlling for sex, age and weight.

Models and 5′11″

Modeling conventions put 5′11″ on two boundaries at once. The British Association of Model Agents gives a range of 5′8″ (173 cm) to 5′11″ (180 cm) for female models, so 5′11″ is the top of the women's range. For male models, commonly cited guidance runs from 5′11″ (180 cm) to 6′2″ (188 cm), so 5′11″ is the bottom of the men's range. It is a rare case where the same height is the ceiling for one sex and the floor for the other.

Unsurprisingly, the site's catalog includes several models at 180 cm: Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Melania Trump, along with Michelle Obama at 180.3 cm.

Famous people listed at 5′11″

Among the site's featured people, those listed at 180 cm include singer Taylor Swift, actor Brad Pitt, actress Nicole Kidman, model Kendall Jenner and tennis player Learner Tien. It is a striking list because it mixes men who are moderately tall for their sex with women who are exceptionally tall for theirs. Elsewhere in the catalog at the same listed height are George Clooney, James Joyce at 180.3 cm, Mao Zedong, Luciano Pavarotti and Francesco Totti.

5′11″ worldwide

The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration estimated mean adult height by birth year for 200 countries using measurements from more than 18.6 million people. For men born in 1996, 5′11″ is close to the national average across much of northern and western Europe:

So a 5′11″ man would be right at the young adult average in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm or Oslo, a little tall in New York, and a little short in Amsterdam. NCD-RisC identifies men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of the twentieth century as the tallest population in its century of data, with averages above 182.5 cm.

5′11″ and partner preferences

There is a reason 180 cm comes up so often in dating conversations. In a 2022 paper on height preferences, Katarzyna Pisanski and colleagues summarized earlier research showing that Western women generally prefer men taller than the average man in their population, for example men around 180 cm tall, which is 5′11″. In their own cross-cultural sample from Canada, Cuba, Norway and the United States, women preferred men about 2.3 cm taller than their country's average, and men preferred women about 2.5 cm shorter than average. Both sexes showed assortative preferences, meaning taller people preferred taller partners.

How much those preferences shape real couples is another matter. A meta-analysis by Gert Stulp and colleagues pooled 154 correlations between partners' heights and found an average correlation of about 0.23, which they described as moderate and consistent with height not being a major factor in mate choice. In a large UK study of parent couples, the same research group found that preferences for partner height translated into actual pairings only modestly. A 5′11″ man may match a commonly stated preference, but the evidence suggests that preference rarely decides who ends up together.

The six-foot round-up

Five foot eleven is the height most often rounded up. Self-reported heights tend to run slightly high: validation studies cited by the UK couples researchers found that men overstate their height by about 1.2 cm on average and women by about 0.6 cm, with the error larger after age fifty. For a man at 5′11″, an overstatement of 1.2 cm brings him to about 181.5 cm, roughly 5′11½″, and a little generous rounding finishes the job. Measured data are the antidote: in NHANES, where trained staff measured height directly, 6′0″ sits around the 85th percentile for men, while 5′11″ is around the 76th, so the inch between them separates roughly a tenth of American men.

Growing to 5′11″

The CDC 2000 stature-for-age charts, the US reference for ages 2 to 20, reach 180.34 cm only in the upper curves:

• Boys, 95th percentile: about 14 years 7 months.
• Boys, median: never; the median boy reaches about 176.8 cm by 20.
• Girls: none of the standard curves up to the 95th percentile reaches 5′11″.

At age 20, 5′11″ is about the 69th percentile for young men. These percentiles describe a reference population, and individual growth questions are best answered by a pediatrician who can look at the whole growth record.

Living at 5′11″

Beds. Standard twin and full mattresses are 75 inches long, while twin XL, queen, king and California king run 80 to 84 inches, according to the Sleep Foundation. At 71 inches, a 5′11″ sleeper has about four inches of spare length on even the shortest standard mattress. The Sleep Foundation's rule of thumb is that people under six feet have enough legroom on any mattress, while those over six feet should consider at least 80 inches.

Doors and ceilings. Customary US door heights are 78 or 80 inches, and most residential passage doors are 30 by 80 inches (6′8″), leaving a 5′11″ person nine inches of clearance, so everyday spaces rarely feel tight.

Cabin crew. Airlines that set height or reach rules for flight attendants typically accept applicants above about 152 cm and below about 185 cm, so they can reach overhead safety equipment without crowding low cabin ceilings. At 180.34 cm, 5′11″ is comfortably inside that window, about 4.7 cm under the usual upper limit.

Clothing. For men, 5′11″ is within the range regular sizes are built around, and standard inseams usually work. For women, 5′11″ is well above the usual 5′8″ starting point for tall sizes, so tall ranges with longer inseams and sleeves are typically the better fit.

Measuring 5′11″ properly

A lot of men round up from 5′11″ to six feet, so if the inch matters to you, measure. Stand barefoot on a hard floor with heels, buttocks and shoulder blades against a wall, keep your gaze level, and lower a flat object onto the crown. Measure at midday: a Southampton study found that stature fell by about half a centimeter during the morning before leveling off after roughly six hours out of bed. One inch up is 6′0″, 182.88 cm; to see 5′11″ next to any other height, use the height difference calculator.