BTS members' heights

BTS member heights at a glance

BTS is a seven-member group, and its height range is unusually narrow. The six members with a sourced height on this site span just 5 cm, from Suga at 176 cm (5′9½″) to RM at 181 cm (5′11½″), and average about 178.2 cm (5′10″). The seventh member, Jimin, is not yet in the site's data, for reasons explained below; fan-compiled profiles put him at 174–175 cm, which would widen the range to about 7 cm.

Wikipedia describes BTS as a South Korean boy band formed in 2010 that debuted under Big Hit Entertainment in 2013, made up of Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook. The chart above shows them to scale; this article explains where the numbers come from and how they compare with Korean men of the same generation.

Where BTS heights come from

No K-pop agency publishes a measured, dated height chart in the way a sports league does, so BTS heights are assembled from three kinds of source.

Early official profiles. According to Kprofiles, a fan-run profile site that documents its sources, the original figures were taken from BTS's official website and the group's Naver profile. Those listings date from the early years of the group's career.

Statements by the members. Over time several members gave their own figures in broadcasts and live streams, and fan profiles were updated to match. Kprofiles records three such corrections: Jin said he is 179.5 cm, 1.5 cm shorter than RM; V gave 178.8 cm on "Let's BTS" on March 29, 2021; and Jungkook said he is 177 cm on Stationhead radio on October 1, 2023.

Fan compilations and media lists. Koreaboo's article on the members' "true" heights reproduces figures that it says fans compiled because the profiles on Naver, Daum and Google were wrong. Its numbers are close to the site's: RM 181 cm, Jin and V 179 cm, Jungkook 178 cm, J-Hope 177 cm, Suga 176 cm and Jimin 175 cm. It also notes that no member is under 170 cm.

This site's figures come from Wikidata, whose height statements for the BTS members cite Kprofiles or Koreaboo as their reference. That is why the site's values match one or the other of those sources for every member.

Member by member

RM: the tallest, at 181 cm

RM is the tallest member in every source consulted, at 181 cm (5′11½″), and the one figure on which Kprofiles, Koreaboo and this site all agree exactly. He is also the member around whom the group was built: Wikipedia says that Big Hit CEO Bang Si-hyuk originally wanted to form a hip hop group around RM, then an underground rapper in Seoul, before deciding on an idol group instead. RM, J-Hope and Suga were the trainees who stayed on when many others declined to join an idol project.

Jin and V: second place, within a centimeter

Jin, the eldest member, born in 1992, is recorded at 179 cm here. His own statement, as reported by Kprofiles, is 179.5 cm, and he framed it relative to RM: 1.5 cm shorter. V is recorded at 178 cm; his stated 178.8 cm would round to 179 cm, which is the figure Koreaboo and Kprofiles use. In practice the two are the same height to within the precision of any of these sources.

Jungkook: 178 cm or 177 cm

Jungkook, the youngest member, born in 1997, appears at 178 cm on this site and in the Koreaboo list. According to Kprofiles he said in October 2023 that his height is 177 cm. A one-centimeter difference is well within normal day-to-day variation, but it is the most recent first-hand figure for any member, so it is worth recording alongside the older listing.

J-Hope: 177 cm in every source

J-Hope is listed at 177 cm (5′9½″) consistently across Kprofiles, Koreaboo and this site. He is the member who, according to Wikipedia, explained that the name Bangtan Sonyeondan, "Bulletproof Boy Scouts," expresses the group's wish to block out the stereotypes and expectations aimed at young people like bullets.

Suga: 176 cm or 174 cm

Suga shows the largest disagreement among the six. This site and Koreaboo list him at 176 cm, while Kprofiles' current profile gives 174 cm. The 2 cm gap is not explained in either source, so the table above shows both.

Jimin: not yet on this site

Jimin has no height on this site because his Wikidata entry has no height statement, and this site only shows heights that come with a citation. The fan-compiled figures are 174 cm (Kprofiles) and 175 cm (Koreaboo). Including him at 174 cm would bring the seven-member average down to about 177.6 cm and make him the shortest member, level with Suga's Kprofiles figure.

How BTS compare with Korean men of their generation

The members were born between 1992 and 1997, which places them in a generation that grew up after decades of rapid height gains in South Korea.

Against the NCD-RisC estimate for men born in 1996, shown on our South Korea average height page, the six listed BTS members average about 3.3 cm taller. Against the government's 2022 Size Korea survey, which covers all adults from 20 to 69 and so includes older, shorter cohorts, the gap is about 5.7 cm. Even Suga, at the lower of his two listed heights, is above the all-ages average.

The longer history is striking. The NCD-RisC study of a century of height data found that South Korean men gained about 15 cm over the 20th century, one of the largest increases in the world, and that the rise began to flatten for men born in the 1980s. A Seoul National University study reported by The Korea Herald estimated Joseon-era men at just 161.1 cm, about 20 cm shorter than RM.

BTS heights in international terms

The same NCD-RisC study shows how the members compare with men elsewhere. It found that South Korean men and women are now taller than their Japanese counterparts, and that Chinese men and women have overtaken the Japanese but are not yet as tall as South Koreans. In this site's country data for men born in 1996, the averages are:

So the group's average is roughly that of an American man of the same generation, and RM, at 181 cm, is still about 1.5 cm below the average Dutch man, the tallest population in the study. In Japan, where BTS have released Japanese-language albums since 2014, the members would stand well above average: see our Japan average height page.

Seven members, a narrow range

With six of the seven members within 5 cm of each other, BTS have one of the narrower height spreads among the groups featured on this site. Compare that with IVE, where this site's figures run from 165 cm to 173 cm, an 8 cm spread among four listed members.

The younger generation in Korea is still growing slightly taller. The Korea Herald, reporting a government study by the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards, said male high school students averaged 173.2 cm in 2023, up from 171 cm a decade earlier, and middle school boys rose from 157.9 cm to 165.3 cm over the same period. Today's teenage boys are therefore already slightly taller, on average, than the 2022 adult figure for all ages.

For readers outside Korea, it may help to translate the numbers. 178 cm is 5′10″, and 181 cm is just under 5′11½″. The 178 cm conversion page shows where that height falls among American and global men, and the height difference calculator gives the exact gap between any two members.

Military service and the group today

The group's recent history is defined by South Korea's mandatory military service. Wikipedia records that on June 14, 2022, BTS announced a pause in group activities so the members could complete their roughly 18 months of service. Jin, the eldest, withdrew his enlistment deferral request in October 2022, J-Hope enlisted on April 18, 2023, and all members had completed service by June 2025. The group's first album in nearly four years, Arirang, followed in 2026 and produced their seventh US number-one single.

None of the sources consulted for this page report any change in the members' listed heights in connection with their service, and the heights on this page should be read as their adult heights from the group's years of activity.

Comparing BTS with other groups

BTS are among the taller male groups in K-pop, but their average sits well within the normal range for young Korean men who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s. To see them alongside members of other groups featured on this site, visit the K-pop hub, or add any member to the height comparison tool next to yourself.