Bentham J. auteur aut IRD Cesare M. auteur aut IRD Stevens G. A. auteur aut IRD Zhou B. auteur aut IRD Bixby H. auteur aut IRD Cowan M. auteur aut IRD Fortunato L. auteur aut IRD Bennett J. E. auteur aut IRD Danaei G. auteur aut IRD Hajifathalian K. auteur aut IRD Lu Y. auteur aut IRD Riley L. M. auteur aut IRD Laxmaiah A. auteur aut IRD Kontis V. auteur aut IRD Paciorek C. J. auteur aut IRD Riboli E. auteur aut IRD Ezzati M. auteur aut IRD Delpeuch Francis collab. clb IRD Maire Bernard collab. clb IRD Martin-Prével Yves collab. clb IRD Traissac Pierre collab. clb IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.522.7) and 16.5 cm (13.319.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries. specialized MONDE 054 050 106 5 e13410 [29 ] 2016 2050-084X https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010067760 10.7554/eLife.13410 2050-084X [F B010067760] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010067760 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers16-09/010067760.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2016-09-30 2025-01-17 fdi:010067760 fre