aespa members' heights

aespa member heights

aespa is a four-member South Korean girl group formed by SM Entertainment, made up of Karina, Giselle, Winter and Ningning. All four have a sourced height in this site's data, which makes aespa the only one of the girl groups featured here with a complete height chart. The members range from Karina at 167.8 cm (5′6″) to Ningning at 161 cm (5′3½″), and together they average about 164.5 cm (5′5″).

The spread from tallest to shortest is 6.8 cm. The middle two members, Winter and Giselle, are a single centimeter apart, so in practice the group has one taller member, one shorter member, and a matched pair in between.

Where aespa's heights come from

SM Entertainment does not publish height figures for its artists, so like most K-pop heights these come from secondary sources.

This site's numbers are taken from Wikidata, and for aespa every height statement cites the same reference: the fan-run Kprofiles page for the group. Kprofiles in turn notes that the members updated or confirmed their heights in an interview with 1theK, a K-pop YouTube channel. That is why the figures are consistent across the two sources and why Karina's is given to a tenth of a centimeter, an unusual level of precision for an idol profile.

The only difference between the sources is Giselle, whom Kprofiles lists as "163~164 cm." This site uses the upper value, 164 cm.

Because all four figures rest on a single fan-compiled source, they should be treated as reported rather than officially measured heights. They are, however, consistent with what the members said in the interview Kprofiles cites.

Karina: leader and tallest member

Karina, born Yu Ji-min in April 2000, is aespa's leader, according to Wikipedia's member list, and its tallest member at 167.8 cm (5′6″). Kprofiles says she was born in Paldal-gu in Gyeonggi Province and grew up in Bundang, Seongnam.

Before the group's debut she was the first member the public saw. Wikipedia records that she appeared in labelmate Taemin's music video for "Want" in February 2019 and performed with him on several music programs, and that she joined Kai for a virtual showcase in a Hyundai and SM Entertainment collaboration. In December 2021 she and Winter were also named members of SM's supergroup Got the Beat.

At 167.8 cm Karina is about 5.5 cm taller than the average South Korean woman born in 1996, who measures 162.3 cm in the NCD-RisC data shown on our South Korea average height page.

Winter and Giselle: one centimeter apart

Winter, born Kim Min-jeong on January 1, 2001, is listed at 165 cm (5′5″). Kprofiles says she was born in Busan and went to school in Yangsan. Wikipedia describes her as a vocalist and dancer. She was the first member revealed when SM introduced the group in October 2020.

Giselle, born Uchinaga Aeri in October 2000, is listed at 164 cm (5′4½″), or 163–164 cm on Kprofiles. She is aespa's main rapper, according to Kprofiles, which describes her nationality as Japanese-Korean and notes that she attended Tokyo International School. Against the average Japanese woman born in 1996, who stands 158.3 cm in NCD-RisC data on our Japan average height page, she is about 5.7 cm taller.

Ningning: the youngest

Ningning, born Ning Yizhuo in Harbin, China, in October 2002, is the youngest member and the shortest at 161 cm (5′3½″). She has also been with SM the longest: Wikipedia says she was introduced as part of the pre-debut team SM Rookies on September 19, 2016, appeared on the program My SMT that year, and recorded covers for the animated series Shining Star in 2017.

Chinese women born in 1996 average 159.7 cm in this site's NCD-RisC data, so Ningning is about 1.3 cm above the average for her country. The NCD-RisC study notes that Chinese men and women have overtaken their Japanese counterparts in height but are not yet as tall as South Koreans.

A three-country group compared with home averages

Because aespa's members come from South Korea, Japan and China, it is fairer to compare each with women of her own country than with a single national figure.

Every member is above her country's average, and Karina and Giselle are both more than 5 cm above it. The comparison also shows why a group average can mislead: Ningning is the shortest member of aespa but sits closest to an ordinary woman of her own country, while Giselle, in the middle of the group, is the furthest above her national average.

Ages at debut: adult heights from the start

One reason aespa's figures are more stable than those of some younger groups is age. When "Black Mamba" was released on November 17, 2020, Karina was 20, Giselle had just turned 20, Winter was 19 and Ningning had just turned 18. All four had reached adulthood or were on the brink of it, so their listed heights are adult heights rather than snapshots of teenagers still growing.

Compare that with LE SSERAFIM's Hong Eunchae, who debuted at 15 and whose listed height moved from 170 cm to 169 cm between profiles, or IVE's Leeseo, who was 14 at her group's debut. For aespa, the only open question is precision, such as whether Giselle is 163 or 164 cm, rather than growth. The figures Kprofiles attributes to the members' 1theK interview match the heights recorded on Wikidata for every member, which is reassuring even though both ultimately rest on the same fan-compiled page.

aespa on world stages

aespa have performed across Asia, North America and Europe, from Coachella in 2022 to a showcase in Los Angeles and a 2023 US leg that opened at the Crypto.com Arena. Using this site's NCD-RisC data for women born in 1996, here is how the tallest and shortest members compare with typical women in some of those audiences:

In other words, aespa's members are tall by East Asian standards and about average by Western ones. The group's 164.5 cm average is only a centimeter above that of an American woman of the same generation, and Karina is almost exactly the height of the average Dutch woman, which ties with Estonia for the second-tallest average for women in this site's NCD-RisC data, behind Latvia at 169.8 cm.

In Japan, where the 2023 tour played ten sold-out shows in Osaka, Tokyo, Saitama and Aichi, all four members would stand above the national average for their generation.

The Korean context: a century of growth

The South Korean figure itself reflects an extraordinary change. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration's study of a century of adult height, published in eLife in 2016, found that South Korean women gained about 20 cm over the 20th century, the largest increase of any population of either sex, moving from the fifth-shortest women in the world to the top third.

The Korea Herald has reported three further reference points. A Seoul National University study of thighbones from 116 adults estimated Joseon-era Korean women at 148.9 cm. In 2010, the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards measured adult women at an average of 160.5 cm. And in the agency's 2022 Size Korea survey of people aged 20 to 69, women averaged 159.6 cm, a rise of 5.3 cm over 40 years. Karina, at 167.8 cm, stands almost 19 cm taller than the Joseon-era estimate.

The same Korea Herald report shows teenage girls still growing slightly taller: female high school students averaged 161.7 cm in 2023, up from 159.8 cm in 2013. That is very close to Ningning's 161 cm and Winter's 165 cm.

aespa among the featured girl groups

aespa has the lowest average of the three girl groups on this site, but the gap is a matter of a few centimeters.

Karina, aespa's tallest member, would sit in the middle of IVE, between Liz (171 cm) and Leeseo (165 cm), and close to the middle of LE SSERAFIM. In feet and inches the group spans 5′3½″ to 5′6″; the 165 cm conversion page shows how Winter's height compares with women in the United States and worldwide.

The group behind the numbers

Wikipedia says the name aespa combines the initials of "avatar" and "experience" with the word "aspect," to express the idea of meeting another self and experiencing a new world, and that the group is known for popularizing the metaverse concept and hyperpop in K-pop. SM announced aespa on October 26, 2020, as its first new girl group since Red Velvet in 2014, and the debut single "Black Mamba" followed on November 17, drawing 21.4 million views in 24 hours, a record for a K-pop group's debut video.

"Next Level" (2021) became their first top-five hit in South Korea, the EP Girls (2022) became the first K-pop girl group album to sell a million copies in its first week, and "Supernova" (2024) topped the Circle Digital Chart for eleven weeks. In April 2022 aespa became the third K-pop girl group to perform at Coachella, and their first tour, Synk: Hyper Line, drew 110,000 spectators across ten sold-out shows in Japan in 2023.

To see the four members next to yourself or next to idols from other groups, use the height comparison tool.