Those looking for a tall romantic partner are in luck, as researchers have come up with an analysis that can speed up your search.
Data analyzed by the University of Oxford has revealed which country is most likely to find the tallest men and women.
Turkey is home to the world’s tallest man, Sultan Kosen, who is 8 feet 3 inches, and the tallest woman, Rumeysa Gelgi, who is 7 feet 1 inch.
However, despite the imposing heights of Kosen and Gelgi, Türkiye does not have the tallest average height.
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 an average of 182.54 cm, figures show, the equivalent of about 6 feet.
The shortest man of all time, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, photographed with the world’s tallest man, Sultan Kosen (left). Jyoti Amge, the shortest woman, and Rumeysa Gelgi, the tallest woman (right)
While the Dutch women measure 168.72 cm or 5 feet 5.
Latvia is home to the tallest women with an average height of 169.80 cm (5 ft 5).
Men from the northern European country come in fourth place at 181.42 cm.
The UK is far behind in The typical Briton born in the same year is 177.49cm, or about 5ft 10, 31st in the world height rankings.
British women have an average height of 164.40 cm, which is approximately 5 foot 3, which is 38th in the ranking.
In comparison, men in the United States are about 177.13 cm (5 ft 8) and women are about 163.54 cm (5 ft 3).
At the other end of the scale, East Timor, an island in Southeast Asia, is home to the smallest men, measuring 159.79 cm (5 ft 2), on average.
Women from the Central American country Guatemala are some of the smallest in the world with an average height of 149.39 cm (about 4 foot 9).
The height data, shared by Our World in Data, a platform supported by the University of Oxford, is available for all 195 countries and involves millions of participants.
The results were calculated by dividing the sum of the total heights by the male population. The same method was used to calculate the average height of the female population.
Sharing their results, the Our World in Data team wrote: ‘Poor nutrition and childhood illness limit human growth.
‘As a consequence, the average height of a population is strongly correlated with the standard of living of a population.
“This makes the study of height relevant to historians who want to understand the history of living conditions.”
But height cannot be used as a direct measure of well-being. Researchers believe that individual height is largely determined by genetic factors.
After the Netherlands, Belgium (181.70 cm), Estonia (181.59 cm), Latvia (181.42 cm) and Denmark (181.39 cm) complete the top five countries with the tallest men.
For women, Latvia (169.80 cm), Netherlands (168.72 cm), Estonia (168.67 cm), Czechia (168.46 cm) and Serbia (167.69 cm) are among the first five.
According to Guinness World Records, the world’s tallest man who has ever lived was Robert Wadlow, born in 1918 and from St Louis, Illinois, who stood 272 cm (8 ft 11).
The world’s tallest woman was Zeng Jinlian of China, who was 246.3 cm (8 ft 1) when she died on February 13, 1982.
American scientists recently discovered that while 70 to 80 percent of our height depends on the genes we inherit, the rest is actually determined by our environment.
Examining data from more than 13,000 Americans of Latino and Hispanic descent, researchers assessed details including participants’ height, socioeconomic education and genetics.
Presenting their findings at the American Heart Association Conference in Chicago, experts at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York said that growing up in a wealthier family may outweigh other factors.
The team wrote that this may indicate “better nutrition and social resources to promote growth.”
The findings echo an earlier British study that found that children in the poorest areas of England were 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 that the average height of five-year-olds has been falling since 2013, with British boys being the shortest and girls the second shortest among developed countries.
The charity’s report noted that this drop in height followed a reduction in the consumption of key nutrients in the average UK diet, including calcium, zinc, vitamin A, folate and iron.