5′2″ in cm = 157.48 cm

5′2″ in centimeters

5 feet 2 inches is 157.48 cm. Sixty inches for five feet plus two more makes 62 inches, and 62 × 2.54 = 157.48. That figure is exact, because NIST and its counterparts in other English-speaking countries have defined the inch as precisely 25.4 millimeters since 1959.

Rounded to whole centimeters, 5′2″ is 157 cm; in meters, 1.57 m. The label "5′2″" applies to metric heights from 156.21 cm to 158.75 cm, so people measured at 157 or 158 cm both round to it.

The neighboring inch values are 5′1″ at 154.94 cm and 5′3″ at 160.02 cm, each exactly 2.54 cm away, since every inch adds the same fixed amount.

Slightly below average for American women

The CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) measured 3,307 women aged 20 and over with a stadiometer between August 2021 and August 2023. Their mean height was 161.2 cm (63.5 inches). The 25th percentile was 156.4 cm and the median 161.2 cm, which places 5′2″ at roughly the 31st percentile: about seven in ten American women are taller.

That ranking changes sharply with age, and 5′2″ happens to be the height where the oldest women in the survey sit:

Among women aged 80 and over, the median is 156.9 cm, so 5′2″ is essentially the typical height of that generation. Among women in their seventies the median is 157.9 cm, also within half a centimeter.

Why older women's average is close to 5′2″

Two separate effects bring the older median down to 5′2″. The first is generational. A 2004 NCHS report that pulled together US measurement surveys since the 1960s shows women aged 20 to 74 averaging 160.2 cm in 1960–62, 161.6 cm in 1971–74 and 162.5 cm by 1999–2002. Women born earlier in the twentieth century started their adult lives shorter. The youngest group shows the same drift: women aged 20 to 29 averaged 161.8 cm in 1960–62, 163.3 cm in 1976–80 and 162.8 cm in 1988–94, and the NHANES 2021–2023 mean for that age group is 163.5 cm, the highest of the series. A 5′2″ woman in her twenties in the early 1960s was about 4 cm below her peers' average; a 5′2″ woman in her twenties today is about 6 cm below it. The height has not changed, but the comparison group has grown taller around it, which is a large part of why 5′2″ feels shorter to younger women than it did to their grandmothers.

For men in the same report, the change was similar in scale: men aged 20 to 74 averaged 173.4 cm in 1960–62 and 176.2 cm in 1999–2002, an increase of under 3 cm in four decades.

The second is aging itself. The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging measured 2,084 adults repeatedly over years and found that height loss begins around age 30 and accelerates. Women lost about 5 cm on average between ages 30 and 70, and about 8 cm by age 80. A woman who measured 5′5″ at 30 could plausibly measure close to 5′2″ in her eighties. The study's authors noted that the loss is large enough to distort body mass index calculations in older people if earlier heights are used.

Part of this is the posture problem that measurement technicians face. The NHANES procedures manual notes that elderly participants with kyphosis, a forward curvature of the upper spine, may not be able to touch all four contact points on the stadiometer, and instructs examiners to record the best measurement possible. If you notice a marked or sudden loss of height, it is worth mentioning to a doctor.

5′2″ around the world

Globally, 5′2″ is very close to an average woman's height in many countries. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), whose estimates pool measured data on more than 18.6 million people, gives these averages for women born in 1996:

Japan is the most dramatic story. Japanese women born in 1896 averaged 142.3 cm, and NCD-RisC lists Japan among the countries with the shortest women of that generation. Over the following century they gained 16 cm, one of the large East Asian gains the study highlights. NCD-RisC also notes that Japan's height gains came with little change in body mass index, in contrast with countries such as the United States. The gains have since leveled off: women born in 1976 averaged 158.5 cm, slightly more than the 1996 cohort.

Mexico and Colombia show the Latin American pattern, with gains of about 13 cm over the century. Nigeria went the other way in recent decades: women born in 1956 averaged 159.0 cm, but those born in 1996 averaged 156.3 cm. Our World in Data, which publishes the NCD-RisC series, notes that male heights in Sub-Saharan Africa have declined since 1970 and points to nutrition and childhood disease as key influences on growth.

Our World in Data gives the global average woman born in 1996 as about 159 cm, so 5′2″ is only about 1.5 cm below the worldwide figure. It also sits close to the midpoint of the global range: NCD-RisC finds the shortest women, in Guatemala, averaging 149.4 cm and the tallest, in Latvia, 169.8 cm. At 157.5 cm, a 5′2″ woman is about 8 cm above the shortest national average and 12 cm below the tallest.

What 5′2″ looks like next to other averages

Using the NHANES and NCD-RisC figures above, a 5′2″ woman stands:

• about 3.7 cm (1.5 inches) shorter than the average American woman (161.2 cm);
• about 17.6 cm (6.9 inches) shorter than the average American man (175.1 cm);
• about 11 cm (4.5 inches) shorter than the average young Dutch woman (168.7 cm);
• about 25 cm (9.9 inches) shorter than the average young Dutch man (182.5 cm), the tallest national average in the world.

In Mexico, Colombia or Egypt, by contrast, she would be right at the female average, and only about 12 cm shorter than the typical Mexican man (169.0 cm for men born in 1996).

5′2″ as a man

For men, 5′2″ is uncommon in almost every country. In NHANES, the 5th percentile for American men aged 20 and over is 162.2 cm, about 4.7 cm above 5′2″, and even among men aged 80 and over it is 158.3 cm. NCD-RisC reports the shortest national male averages, for men born in 1996, in Timor-Leste, Yemen and Laos at about 160 cm.

The best-known man at about this height is Kevin Hart. Atlanta Black Star, reporting on a 2023 interview, described his "5-foot-2 stature" and quoted him saying he thought he was tall until he spent time around NBA players. Hart has long made his height part of his comedy. This site lists him at 158 cm, which rounds to 5′2″. His page, Kevin Hart's height, compares him with frequent co-stars.

Among women, Ariana Grande is listed at 157.5 cm, which is 5′2″ exactly.

Growing to 5′2″

On the CDC 2000 stature-for-age growth chart, the median girl reaches 157.5 cm at a little over 13 years, about the same age as the median boy. The chart's median woman at age 20 is about 163.3 cm, which puts an adult at 5′2″ around the 18th percentile of that reference curve.

Growth charts describe a reference population, not a forecast for an individual child. A pediatrician who tracks measurements over several visits is the right person to interpret a particular child's pattern.

Petite sizing at 5′2″

Petite clothing is designed for women 5′4″ (163 cm) and under, adjusting proportions as well as length. At 5′2″, a woman is about 5.5 cm below the petite cutoff and about 3.7 cm below the average American woman, which places her in the middle of the petite range.

5′2″ next to a taller partner

Two comparisons involving 5′2″ have their own pages: 5′2″ vs 6′2″, a difference of exactly 12 inches (30.48 cm), and 5′2″ vs 5′10″, a difference of 8 inches (20.32 cm).

Gert Stulp and colleagues, in a 2013 PLOS ONE study of 12,502 couples from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, found that men were taller than their partners in 92.5% of couples, a little more than the 89.8% expected at random. Couples where the man was 25 cm or more taller made up 13.9% of the sample, slightly fewer than the 15.7% chance would predict. So a 5′2″ and 5′10″ couple sits comfortably within the most common range, while a 5′2″ and 6′2″ couple is in the less common, but by no means rare, group with a gap above 25 cm. The researchers concluded that height preferences translate into actual pairings only modestly.

Measuring accurately at 5′2″

Stand barefoot on a hard floor with heels together and heels, buttocks, shoulder blades and the back of the head against a flat wall. Keep your head level, as if looking at the horizon, take a breath, and have someone lower a hardback book flat onto your head to mark the wall. Measure in the morning, when the spine is longest, and take the average of two or three readings. A 2011 study in Clinical Biomechanics recorded an average daily change in stature of about 17.6 mm in healthy adults, with the largest drop in the first hour after getting up, so morning and evening readings can easily differ by more than a centimeter. Any result between 156.2 and 158.7 cm rounds to 5′2″.

It is also worth measuring rather than relying on the number on an old form. A 2018 meta-analysis by Seijo and colleagues, covering 21 studies and 18,749 women of reproductive age, found that self-reported height exceeded measured height by 0.36 cm on average. The statistics on this page all come from measured heights, so a measured figure is the fair comparison. The height percentile calculator will place your measurement against the NHANES tables for your age.