How tall is Bill Clinton?

How tall is Bill Clinton? The White House records

Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, is listed on this site at 189 cm, about 6′2½″. Unlike most historical figures, Clinton's height is documented in a series of official records: during his two terms, the White House published the results of his annual physical examinations, and every one of them gives his height as 6′2″, which converts to 188 cm. The site's 189 cm figure, drawn from Wikidata, sits about a centimeter above that, a difference consistent with rounding and with some reference works describing him as 6′2″ to 6′2½″.

The best source is therefore the presidential physicals themselves. A press statement on his March 1995 exam described the 48-year-old president as "6 foot 2 inches tall" and 216 pounds. The October 1997 briefing by press secretary Mike McCurry and White House physician Dr. Connie Mariano reported that he "weighed in 196 pounds on his 6'2" frame." The January 2001 briefing, his last as president, again gave 6′2″ and 214 pounds, and noted that the normal weight range for a man of his height was 190 to 220 pounds.

A president's weight, in public

Few presidents have had their weight discussed as openly as Clinton. Newsweek's August 1997 article "A whole new body" reported that he weighed 226 pounds when he took office and was down to 210 by 1996. After a knee injury in March 1997, at golfer Greg Norman's home in Florida, his rehabilitation and a reduced diet brought him close to his college weight of about 195 pounds. Dr. Mariano described the injury as "a blessing in disguise," according to Newsweek. The October 1997 physical confirmed the change: 196 pounds, down 20 from the year before, and the president remarked that all his exercise had paid off.

The weight came back gradually. By the 1999 physical he was at 214 pounds, and the January 2001 briefing recorded the same 214 pounds, "unchanged from last year," while noting that it fell within the normal range for his 6′2″ height. At 188 cm, those weights correspond to body mass indexes from about 25 at 196 pounds to about 29 at 226 pounds.

His jogging, often filmed by news crews in Washington and on trips abroad, became a familiar image of the early 1990s. The physicals show the effect of those years: a big man who was fit enough to complete a 13-minute treadmill test at 18 percent grade in 1997, but whose weight fluctuated by about 30 pounds over his presidency.

Clinton among presidents by height

Clinton is one of the tallest presidents in American history. Of the 45 presidents with height records on this site, he ties Thomas Jefferson for fourth tallest. The table uses the site's figures.

The average height of the 45 presidents in this data set is about 180.2 cm, so Clinton stands nearly 9 cm above the presidential mean. His successor, George W. Bush, was about 6.5 cm shorter, and his predecessor, George H. W. Bush, essentially his height.

The 1992 and 1996 elections

Height comparisons between candidates often draw attention in presidential races, and Clinton's two elections are unusual examples. In 1992, he faced the incumbent George H. W. Bush, listed on this site at 188 cm, almost exactly his own height, and the independent businessman Ross Perot. Clinton won 370 electoral votes. In 1996, he defeated Republican Bob Dole, again with Perot in the race, taking 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole's 40.7 percent.

A 2012 study in The Leadership Quarterly by Gert Stulp and colleagues at the University of Groningen examined every US presidential election and found that candidates taller than their opponents tended to win more popular votes, although they were not significantly more likely to win the election, and that taller presidents were more likely to be reelected. Clinton, a tall president who was reelected, fits that pattern, though with near-identical heights in 1992 it is hard to argue height made a difference that year.

Height and how presidents are remembered

The same Groningen study also found that historians and political experts tend to rate taller presidents as "greater" and as stronger leaders and communicators, though it could not separate height from the many other factors that shape those ratings. Clinton's own standing in historical rankings is in the middle to upper tier, according to the surveys summarized in his Wikipedia biography, and he left office with one of the highest approval ratings of any departing president. His communication style, in particular his ease in town-hall settings and on late-night television, is far more often credited for that than his height, but his physical presence on stage was part of the overall impression.

The presidents before and after him

Clinton's place in the sequence of presidents shows how much heights can swing from one administration to the next:

Clinton followed the elder Bush, essentially his own height, and was followed by the younger Bush, about 6.5 cm shorter. The Bush family itself illustrates how a father and son can differ: George H. W. Bush is listed about 5.5 cm taller than George W. Bush in the site's data.

The tall Democratic ticket: Clinton and Gore

Clinton's running mate, Al Gore, is listed on this site at 189 cm, the same as Clinton. That made the 1992 and 1996 Democratic tickets unusually tall pairings: two candidates, both born in the late 1940s, each standing more than 11 cm above the average American man of their generation. When they campaigned together on their 1992 bus tour, they presented a matched pair rather than the usual contrast between a president and a shorter vice president.

Meeting JFK at Boys Nation

One of the best-known photographs of Clinton was taken in July 1963, when as a 16-year-old Boys Nation delegate from Arkansas he shook hands with President John F. Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. Clinton has described that visit as one of two moments in 1963 that set him on the path to public life, the other being Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In the adult heights on this site, Clinton at 189 cm would stand about 4 cm taller than Kennedy at 185 cm; in the 1963 photo, the teenage Clinton already looks close to Kennedy's height.

Five presidents in one frame

The living presidents occasionally appear together at state funerals, library dedications and other ceremonies, which produces some of the most direct height comparisons available for political figures. At Jimmy Carter's state funeral at Washington National Cathedral in January 2025, all five living presidents attended. Using this site's figures, they line up as follows:

The spread is only 8 cm, from George W. Bush to Donald Trump, and Clinton sits second in the group. In practice, posture and footwear can easily move any of them a centimeter or two in a photograph, so Clinton, Trump and Obama read as a tall trio while Biden and Bush appear a little shorter.

Why Clinton's height is better documented than most

For most presidents, height comes from biographers, military records or contemporary descriptions, and estimates can vary by an inch or more. Clinton is different because his physicians released his measurements year after year, in a consistent format, during his time in office. That creates a run of independent records, including those from 1995, 1997 and 2001, each giving the same 6′2″. A height repeated identically across multiple clinical exams is about as reliable as public figures' heights get.

The site's 189 cm sits about a centimeter above the physicians' 6′2″. That small difference likely reflects rounding: the briefings report whole inches, so a man measured anywhere between about 6′1½″ and 6′2½″ would be recorded as 6′2″. Reference sources that describe him as 6′2½″ are consistent with the upper end of that range, and 189 cm lies within it.

Clinton next to world leaders of the 1990s

As president, Clinton was often photographed beside foreign leaders, and his height made him one of the taller figures at most summits. Using this site's figures:

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a towering figure in European politics in every sense, was one of the few leaders of the decade who stood taller than Clinton, by about 6 cm, while Russian President Boris Yeltsin was close to his height. Tony Blair, his closest international ally in the late 1990s and a frequent partner at joint press conferences, was about 6 cm shorter.

Compared with the average American man

Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas, on August 19, 1946. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration estimates that American men born in 1926 averaged about 174.7 cm and those born in 1956 about 177.2 cm.

Interpolating for 1946, the typical American man of Clinton's generation stood about 176 cm, so Clinton was roughly 13 cm (about 5 inches) taller than his average contemporary, putting him beyond the 95th percentile. You can explore how American heights rose over the 20th century on our United States average height page.

Seeing Clinton's height side by side

To see Clinton next to other presidents, use the main height comparison tool, which shows figures at true scale. Good pairings include Clinton next to Kennedy, recreating the 1963 handshake at adult heights, and Clinton next to Obama, two two-term Democratic presidents separated by only about 2 cm. The height difference calculator gives the exact gap between any two heights, and for more presidents, politicians and public figures, browse the celebrity heights hub.