Height Comparison Tool

How height comparison works

Every subject is stored as a height in centimetres. Feet, inches and metres are converted on the way in and out using the exact definition 1 in = 2.54 cm, so 5′ 11″ and 180.3 cm are the same value inside the tool.

All figures are then drawn on one linear scale: a subject’s drawn height is its height divided by the top of the axis. If one subject is 12.5% taller than another, it is drawn exactly 12.5% taller. People and celebrities are drawn as a person silhouette. Animals, dinosaurs, objects and most buildings have their own silhouette, set so the measured part (the top, or the shoulder, withers or hip of an animal) sits exactly at the stated height. A subject without a silhouette is drawn as a plain bar of the right height.

Compare 2–10 heights

A comparison needs at least two subjects and holds up to ten. Add a blank subject and type a name and height, or pick one from the preset search, which you can browse as a grid or a list. Reorder subjects with the move buttons to change how they sit on the chart.

Typed heights are read flexibly: 180, 1.8 m, 5'11" and 71 in all work, and an entry such as “5 ft 14 in” is flagged as a likely typo rather than silently accepted.

Compare yourself with celebrities

The presets hold 159 celebrities, athletes and record holders, and 49animals, dinosaurs, objects and buildings, each with a named source. They are mostly athletes, because those are people whose heights are published and can be cited, plus some actors and record holders. Examples include Shaquille O’Neal (216 cm), Lionel Messi (170.2 cm) and Simone Biles (142.2 cm), all listed heights (opens in new tab), and Robert Wadlow (272 cm), the tallest man ever recorded, from Guinness World Records (opens in new tab).

The full list, with sources, is on the celebrity height comparison page.

Compare humans with animals

The scale does not care what the subject is, so the same chart can hold a person, a giraffe and a shipping container. A giraffe at its typical 500 cm (range 430–570 cm (opens in new tab)) stands about 2.3 times as tall as Shaquille O’Neal’s listed 216 cm.

Animal heights are not measured the way human heights are. Elephants, bears and tigers are usually given at the shoulder, giraffes and ostriches at the top of the head, and dinosaur heights are reconstructions. Each preset says which it is. Where sources give a range, the chart uses the midpoint and labels it as an estimate.

A flat, to-scale chart

HeightScope draws a flat, side-on chart, which is the clearest way to judge relative height because nothing is hidden by perspective. “Fit all”, the default, draws every figure on one shared scale. “Readable” keeps the tall subjects on that scale and moves subjects much smaller than the tallest into a zoomed inset with its own height scale, labelled as such; heights stay exactly proportional within each part.

Height difference

The difference is the larger height minus the smaller, calculated in centimetres and then shown in your chosen unit. The default comparison, the mean measured height of US adults, gives 175.3 cm − 161.3 cm = 14.0 cm, or 5.51 in.

The table under the chart compares every subject with the tallest, or with the first subject if you switch the reference. For two specific people, with the working shown, use the height difference calculator.

Centimetres and feet/inches

Choose centimetres, metres, feet and inches, or inches only, and switch at any time; the values stay the same and only the display changes. Display is rounded: centimetres to 0.1, metres to 0.01, inches to 0.1, and feet-and-inches to the whole inch. That means 180 cm shows as 5′ 11″ although it is 70.87 in, and two heights a centimetre apart can show the same feet and inches.

For a quick one-off conversion, the height converter is simpler than the chart.

Accuracy

The drawing is exact; the data going into it is only as good as its source. A height can be measured, listed by an organisation, taken from an official specification, or be a typical or estimated value, and presets are labelled accordingly. Listed heights may differ from a barefoot measurement, and a person’s height varies a little through the day.

The starting subjects are the mean height of US adults aged 20 and over, measured, 2015–2018, from CDC/NCHS, NHANES 2015–2018 (Vital Health Stat 3(46), 2021) (opens in new tab). They are population averages, not a statement about any individual. Silhouettes are one fixed shape scaled to height, so they show height only, not build or posture.

Privacy

The comparison runs entirely in your browser: heights you type are processed by code on the page and are not sent to a server by it. The site has no accounts, no analytics scripts and no cookies. Fonts are served from the site itself. The one thing stored on your device is your theme choice, in local storage.

Share links work differently. “Share” puts the names, heights and unit of your comparison into the address, after /compare/?. Anyone with the link can read those values, and opening it sends that address to the web server like any page request, so it can appear in server logs. Don’t put anything in a name or height you would not want in a link. PNG export is drawn in your browser and is not uploaded.

Frequently asked questions