What Percent of Women Are 6'10" or Over?

[JNAProductions]

See title.

I've started writing a story and one of the characters (Celina) is a woman. A really tall woman. Like, basketball player tall.

So, I want to know exactly how unusual a 6'10" woman actually is, and basic Google-Fu has failed me. Playgrounders, any assistance?

[Professor Gnoll]

I'd say very unusual. Britain's tallest woman, Jessica Pardoe, is 6' 9", an inch below your protagonist. An engorged pituary gland could cause it, but that brings other problems with it, depending on what you want your protagonist to actually be doing athletics-wise.
However, it's not outside of the realms of possibility. There's several female athletes measuring around 6' 9".

[JNAProductions]

She's a demon hunter, so pituitary gland problem is not really a possibility. She's definitely a highly active and physically capable.

Of course, it's a fantasy story, so I do't exactly have to worry too much about realism. :P

[Ifni]

A quick google says Germany's tallest woman is six nine, Thailand's tallest woman is six ten. There seem to be at least a few American women who are over seven feet. But it sounds like it's a height level that is rare at the level of "you find one woman this tall, in countries with tens of millions of people", with modern nutrition - so definitely not impossible, but she would be very striking.

[JNAProductions]

A quick google says Germany's tallest woman is six nine, Thailand's tallest woman is six ten. There seem to be at least a few American women who are over seven feet. But it sounds like it's a height level that is rare at the level of "you find one woman this tall, in countries with tens of millions of people", with modern nutrition - so definitely not impossible, but she would be very striking.

I am okay with very striking.

[Professor Gnoll]

She's a demon hunter, so pituitary gland problem is not really a possibility. She's definitely a highly active and physically capable.

Of course, it's a fantasy story, so I do't exactly have to worry too much about realism. :P

Well, Nelly Alisheva is a professional volleyball player (and therefore highly active and physically capable) who measures at 6' 8", so you're only stretching it a little bit.

[ThinkMinty]

See title.

I've started writing a story and one of the characters (Celina) is a woman. A really tall woman. Like, basketball player tall.

So, I want to know exactly how unusual a 6'10" woman actually is, and basic Google-Fu has failed me. Playgrounders, any assistance?

Very, very unlikely.

However, protagonists (or -tagonists in general) are supposed to be unusual and unlikely, so an incredibly tall woman is entirely permitted by the norms of storytelling.

[JNAProductions]

Follow-up question, what about women 4'10" or lower? Her partner in demon slaying, Nerissa, is right about two feet shorter. That seems like it'd be a lot less unusual.

[Lethologica]

There are countries where the average height is 4'10" or less. Lots of women are under that bar.

[JNAProductions]

Okay. So Nerissa is just a lil' short, but certainly not too terribly unusual.

[Professor Gnoll]

Follow-up question, what about women 4'10" or lower? Her partner in demon slaying, Nerissa, is right about two feet shorter. That seems like it'd be a lot less unusual.

That's pretty short for some countries, but hardly outside the realms of possibility. It's certainly more common than being 6' 10". It wouldn't strain my suspension of disbelief.

[Gray Mage]

Average female height in Bolivia is 4'8", so yeah, pretty common I'd say. Even in places with a higher average most aren't much higher than a few inches over 5', so 4'10" should be mostly unremarkable.

Source

[5a Violista]

According to the NHANES (U.S. Civilian) anthropometric data from 2007 to 2010 (compiled here if you want to explore the data), 2% of adult women in the U.S. are below 147.5 cm (which is really close to 4'10").

[ThinkMinty]

Follow-up question, what about women 4'10" or lower? Her partner in demon slaying, Nerissa, is right about two feet shorter. That seems like it'd be a lot less unusual.

This one's very, very common. Not particularly unusual, even. Might be approaching a majority depending on where you go.

[Ifni]

This one's very, very common. Not particularly unusual, even. Might be approaching a majority depending on where you go.

In the US, as noted above, it's about one in fifty - so it's unusual but not so much that it's remarkable; a woman that height will typically be the shortest adult in a gathering of around 100 people. I'm five foot four which is pretty close to the median height for US women, and women more than six inches shorter than me are memorable. But in countries with worse nutrition or genetics that favor lower heights, then it'll be more common. (Of course, in such a country your six foot ten demon-hunter will also stand out even more.)

For another calibration, that 2% number in the US is about the same as the fraction of men that are ~six foot three or taller - enough that your height is something people notice, but we probably all know people that tall/short.

[Telonius]

Being as short as 4 foot 10 was probably more common in the past, and more common as a person ages - people do tend to lose height as they get older. My grandmother was 4 foot 10 before she died (she was born somewhere around 1910), but I believe her maximum height was around 5 feet.

[Coidzor]

I'd look at the rates of gigantism, because being nearly 7 feet tall as a woman is generally an indicator of gigantism, IIRC.

I'd be surprised if it was higher than 0.0001%, which, if I'm eyeballing my math correctly, would be about 3500 women, assuming a back of the napkin 50-50 population split.

Follow-up question, what about women 4'10" or lower? Her partner in demon slaying, Nerissa, is right about two feet shorter. That seems like it'd be a lot less unusual.

In my typical majority White American Public Highschool of between 2000 and 3000 students, I personally knew about 4 teen girls who seemed to be done growing who were less than 5 feet tall, and saw many more.

Amongst White Americans, they're outside of the norm, but not rare enough to be worth commenting on, whereas any woman over 6 feet tall draws some level of attention for being unusual. It would certainly figure into teasing and bullying, though, unless it was in an area where the female average was around 5'2" or lower.

IIRC, they're about as uncommon amongst Black Americans, maybe a little less so. I think they might be a little more common amongst certain subsets of the Latino population.

[SaintRidley]

And acromegaly shouldn't be off the table as an explanation for the extreme height, either. It does come with problems if left untreated, but removal of the pituitary gland can alleviate a number of the issues (as well as stop growth). Most people with acromegaly nowadays have surgery to correct the glandular issue, but it's not usually apparent until they're knocking on the door of seven feet anyway so they still wind up quite tall.

And it doesn't stop you from being incredibly athletic. Paul Wight (better known as The Big Show) was quite athletic in his younger days (see here around 1:35 for a running dropkick, and here for a rope-assisted kip up. It's said he could do top rope backflips as well but nobody wanted to take one) and still does pretty well for a guy in his forties whose knees are shot.

Lindsay Hayward (Isis the Amazon) is 6'9" and reasonably athletic for her size. Not the best wrestler in the world, but probably representative of an athletic giant woman who isn't spectacularly well-trained (as your protagonist is likely to be).

[PoeticDwarf]

A quick google says Germany's tallest woman is six nine, Thailand's tallest woman is six ten. There seem to be at least a few American women who are over seven feet. But it sounds like it's a height level that is rare at the level of "you find one woman this tall, in countries with tens of millions of people", with modern nutrition - so definitely not impossible, but she would be very striking.

And the tallest woman ever was Dutch :)

[Vinyadan]

And the tallest woman ever was Dutch :)

I was actually about to suggest looking into Dutch women. You people are seriously tall, even without gigantism kicking in.

[ThinkMinty]

I was actually about to suggest looking into Dutch women. You people are seriously tall, even without gigantism kicking in.

I think it's because they get healthcare and legalized recreationals. Keeps 'em stress-free.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Hey y'all. I know this has basically been answered, but I got curious and did some googling of my own.

6'10" is 2,083mm. According to wikipedia, the mean height for a US woman is 1,621mm, and a decent estimate for the standard deviation is 65mm (based on data from other countries). That means your subject is 7.1σ away from the mean.

According to Chebyshev's inequality, the probability of the subject being more than k standard deviations away from the mean is 1−(1/k²). That gives us a 1.98% chance that a random American woman is 6'10" or higher. That's way higher than I'd have expected (1 in 50?!), and it makes me wonder if there's some error in the statistics - or that height isn't as normally-distributed as claimed.

Amongst White Americans, [women shorter than 4'10" are] outside of the norm, but not rare enough to be worth commenting on, whereas any woman over 6 feet tall draws some level of attention for being unusual.

Just two pieces of anecdata on this: my 23-year-old sister is 4'11", which attracts constant comment, whereas I once dated a woman who was 6'2" and she didn't seem particularly "unusual". *shrug*

[Lethologica]

Hey y'all. I know this has basically been answered, but I got curious and did some googling of my own.

6'10" is 2,083mm. According to wikipedia, the mean height for a US woman is 1,621mm, and a decent estimate for the standard deviation is 65mm (based on data from other countries). That means your subject is 7.1σ away from the mean.

According to Chebyshev's inequality, the probability of the subject being more than k standard deviations away from the mean is 1−(1/k²). That gives us a 1.98% chance that a random American woman is 6'10" or higher. That's way higher than I'd have expected (1 in 50?!), and it makes me wonder if there's some error in the statistics - or that height isn't as normally-distributed as claimed.

Chebyshev's inequality only proves a loose upper bound--no more than 1.98% of random American women can be 6'10" or taller given that mean and variance data, no matter the distribution. The actual incidence of such women is much, much, much lower.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Chebyshev's inequality only proves a loose upper bound--no more than 1.98% of random American women can be 6'10" or taller given that mean and variance data, no matter the distribution. The actual incidence of such women is much, much, much lower.

Ah, ok. If we make assumptions about the distribution, can we come up with an expected percentage of people over that height?

[Mando Knight]

Ah, ok. If we make assumptions about the distribution, can we come up with an expected percentage of people over that height?

Assuming your numbers from earlier in the thread, if we assume a normal distribution (which is usually a good assumption for things like human height), a 6'10" tall woman (i.e. more than 7 standard deviations from the mean) is a statistical anomaly: around one in 400 billion.

The model of a normal distribution isn't that great for discussing the probabilities of edge cases for the human population, though, since that kind of distribution doesn't account for things like genetic anomalies or generations of families essentially selectively breeding themselves. However, it's still good for pointing out that a woman nearly 7 feet tall is not just really tall, but so tall that she is generally the tallest person a given stranger would ever meet (outside of a gathering of anomalously tall persons, like the NBA).

[AtlanteanTroll]

For another calibration, that 2% number in the US is about the same as the fraction of men that are ~six foot three or taller - enough that your height is something people notice, but we probably all know people that tall/short.

I call BS on this statistic until it is sourced.

[Mando Knight]

I call BS on this statistic until it is sourced.

Anthropometric Reference Data for Children and Adults: United States, 2007–2010 from the CDC states that the mean height of American adult males ages 20+ is 69.3 inches (5' 9.3"), with the 95th percentile (i.e. approx 2 standard deviations from the mean, assuming a normal distribution) being 74.1 inches (6' 2.1"). Assuming a normal distribution, that extra inch means that 6' 3" is indeed at about the 98th percentile.

[AtlanteanTroll]

Anthropometric Reference Data for Children and Adults: United States, 2007–2010 from the CDC states that the mean height of American adult males ages 20+ is 69.3 inches (5' 9.3"), with the 95th percentile (i.e. approx 2 standard deviations from the mean, assuming a normal distribution) being 74.1 inches (6' 2.1"). Assuming a normal distribution, that extra inch means that 6' 3" is indeed at about the 98th percentile.

I stand corrected. And evidently hangout with a lot of extraordinarily tall people.

[Mando Knight]

I stand corrected. And evidently hangout with a lot of extraordinarily tall people.

I was surprised to see it that low as well (since I also know a fair number of people well over that height, even a few women), but the plural of anecdote is not data, and you shouldn't expect to see every group reflect the national population distribution anyway.

[Coidzor]

I stand corrected. And evidently hangout with a lot of extraordinarily tall people.

The figures shift slightly if you're exclusively talking about White Americans, IIRC, which would be most applicable to your neck of the woods.

But, yes, there's more than one reason why people look at women who demand a guy of 6'2"+ height like they're crazy.

I think it's because they get healthcare and legalized recreationals. Keeps 'em stress-free.

Also they're well situated for having a lot of Norse, Celtic, and Germanic stock in their bloodlines.