Those hunting for a tall romantic partner are in luck — as researchers have produced an analysis that may speed up your search.
Data analysed by Oxford University has revealed the country where you’re most likely to find the tallest men and women.
Turkey is home to the world’s tallest man — Sultan Kosen, who stands at 8 feet 3 inches, and the tallest woman, Rumeysa Gelgi, who is 7 feet 1 inch.
Yet, despite Mr Kosen’s and Ms Gelgi’s towering statures, Turkey doesn’t have the tallest average heights.
That title goes to the Netherlands and Latvia, home to the tallest men and women on the planet, on average.
Men born in 1996 in the European country measure 182.54cm, on average, figures show — the equivalent of roughly 6ft.
The shortest man ever, Chandra Bahadur Dangi pictured with the worlds tallest man, Sultan Kosen (left). Jyoti Amge, shortest woman, and Rumeysa Gelgi, tallest woman (right)
While Dutch women measure 168.72cm, or 5ft 5.
Latvia is home to the tallest women with an average height of 169.80cm (5ft 5).
Men in the northern European country rank in fourth place measuring 181.42cm (5ft 9).
The UK is lagging far behind with the typical male Brit born in the same year measuring 177.49 cm, or around 5ft 10 — 31st place in the global height ranking.
British women measure an average height of 164.40cm, which is about 5ft 3 — that’s 38th place in the rankings.
In comparison, men in the United States measure about 177.13cm (5ft 8) and women 163.54cm (5ft 3).
At the other end of the scale, East Timor, an island in South East Asia is home to the smallest men, who measure 159.79cm (5ft 2), on average.
Women in the Central American country Guatemala, are the some of the smallest in the world with and average height of 149.39cm — about 4ft 9.
Height data, shared by Our World in Data, an Oxford University-backed platform, is available for all 195 countries and involves millions of participants.
Results were calculated by dividing the sum of total heights by the male population. The same method was used to compute the average height of the female population.
Sharing their results, the Our World in Data team wrote: ‘Poor nutrition and illness in childhood limit human growth.
‘As a consequence, average height of a population is strongly correlated with living standards in a population.
‘This makes the study of height relevant for historians who want to understand the history of living conditions.’
But height can’t be used as a direct measure of wellbeing. Researchers believe that individual height is largely determined by genetic factors.
Following the Netherlands, Belgium (181.70cm), Estonia (181.59cm), Latvia (181.42cm) and Denmark (181.39cm) round off the top five countries with the tallest men.
For women Latvia (169.80cm), Netherlands (168.72cm), Estonia (168.67cm), Czechia (168.46cm) and Serbia (167.69cm) all make it to the top five tallest.
According to Guinness World Records, the world’s tallest man to have ever lived was Robert Wadlow, born in 1918 and from St Louis, Illinois, who stood at 272cm (8ft 11).
The world’s tallest woman was Zeng Jinlian from China who was 246.3 cm (8ft 1) when she died on 13 February 1982.
US scientists recently found that while 70-80 per cent of how tall we become lies with the genes we inherit, the remainder is actually determined by our environment.
Examining data from over 13,000 Americans of Latino and Hispanic descent, the researchers assessed details including participants’ height, socioeconomic upbringing and genetics.
Presenting their findings at the American Heart Association Conference in Chicago, the experts from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said growing up in a wealthier family may trump other contributors.
The team wrote this may indicate ‘better nutrition and societal resources to promote growth’.
The findings echo a previous British study that found children from poorer areas in England were over four times more likely to measure below the average height for their age, compared to those in more affluent areas.
Meanwhile, a recent report by The Food Foundation found the average height of five-year-olds has been falling since 2013, with British boys ranked shortest and girls second shortest among developed nations.
The charity’s report noted this fall in height followed a reduction in the consumption of key nutrients in the average UK diet, including calcium, zinc, vitamin A, folate and iron.
