Height converter: cm to feet and inches in seconds

Ask a friend in the UK how tall they are and the answer is usually something like “five foot nine”. Ask the same person to fill in a medical form, a visa application or a fitness app and the box wants centimetres. That small mismatch is exactly what this height converter is for. Enter your height in feet and inches, centimetres, metres or plain inches, press Calculate, and every other version appears straight away.

It does more than a basic cm to feet converter or feet to cm converter. There is a height comparison calculator built in, so you can stand up to four people next to each other, and a height conversion chart from 4 ft to 7 ft 11 in that you can tap through. Each result is drawn to scale beside the numbers, which makes it much easier to picture what a few centimetres really look like.

What this height converter does

The tool at the top of the page has three tabs. Pick the one that matches what you need:

A few other things are worth knowing before you start:

• It works as a height calculator in every direction you are likely to need: feet and inches to cm, cm to feet and inches, metres to feet, and inches to cm.
• Every result shows six figures at once: centimetres, feet and inches, metres, total inches, decimal feet and millimetres.
• The figure on the dark panel is drawn to scale, with a centimetre ruler on the left and a feet ruler on the right.
• There is a Copy button on the result card, and nothing to download or sign up for.
• It runs in your browser, and the layout adjusts for phones, tablets and laptops.

How to use this height converter

Everything below refers to the calculator at the top of this page. If you are in a hurry, the Convert tab takes about ten seconds. The other two tabs are there for when you need them.

Convert tab: feet and inches to cm, cm to feet and inches

This is the main tab, and it is a feet inches to cm calculator and a cm to feet and inches calculator in one. Because you choose the starting unit yourself, it also works as a metres to feet converter, an inches to cm converter and a cm to inches converter. Need a plain height converter cm to feet answer? Choose cm as the starting unit, type the number and read the feet and inches line.

1. Choose your starting unit. The four buttons above the boxes are ft & in, cm, metres and inches. If you know you are 5 ft 9 in, stay on ft & in. If your passport or your doctor gave you 175, switch to cm.
2. Type your height. In ft & in mode there are two boxes, one for feet and one for inches. You can leave either empty, so 6 in the feet box with a blank inches box is fine. Decimals work, and a comma is read as a decimal point, so 175,5 means 175.5. Inches above 11 are folded into feet for you: 5 ft 14 in comes back as 6 ft 2 in.
3. Press Calculate. Hitting Enter on your keyboard does the same thing. The result card slides open and the figure on the scale panel grows from the floor up to your height.
4. Read the results. The big card at the top gives centimetres and feet and inches. The four smaller cards underneath show metres, total inches, decimal feet and millimetres. The table below explains each one.
5. Switch units whenever you like. Your last answer carries over. Calculate 175 cm, tap ft & in, and the boxes fill in with 5 ft and 8.9 in, ready to edit.
6. Copy or start again. The small button in the corner of the result card copies a one-line summary you can paste into a message or a form. Reset clears the boxes and the figure.

Here is what each result means, using 5 ft 9 in as the example:

One detail trips people up, so it is worth spelling out. When you start from feet and inches, the centimetre answer is exact. When you start from centimetres, the feet and inches line is rounded to the nearest whole inch, and the card tells you so. Enter 175 cm, for example, and you get 5 ft 9 in with “Nearest inch (5 ft 8.9 in)” underneath. The longer figure is the precise one. The shorter one is what most people would say out loud.

The converter accepts heights from 1 cm up to 300 cm, which is about 9 ft 10 in. Anything outside that range, or anything with letters or a minus sign in it, gets a red message instead of a guess.

Compare tab: a height comparison calculator for up to four people

Open the Compare tab when you want to see how two heights, or more, stack up. Think of it as a compare heights tool and a height difference calculator rolled into one.

• You start with two rows, Person 1 and Person 2. Press + Person to add a third and a fourth. The cross at the end of rows three and four removes them again.
• Tap a name to type over it. Real names (up to 14 characters) make the result cards easier to read.
• Each person has their own ft & in and cm switch, so you can compare 5 ft 9 in with 168 cm without converting anything first.
• Press Calculate. The top card shows the gap between the tallest and shortest person in centimetres and in inches, plus how many per cent taller the tallest is.
• Every person also gets a card with their height in cm and in feet and inches, and how much shorter they are than the tallest. The tallest card is outlined and labelled.
• If everyone is the same height, the card simply says so.
• Each person is drawn on the scale panel in their own colour with the height labelled, which gives you a visual height comparison rather than just numbers.

It is handy for settling the “who is taller” argument in a family, working out how much taller one of you will look in photos, planning a group costume, or seeing how a child is catching up with an older brother or sister.

Height chart tab: a tap-through height conversion chart

The Height chart tab is for quick look-ups. Choose 4 ft, 5 ft, 6 ft or 7 ft and twelve buttons appear, from 0 in to 11 in, each showing its centimetre value. Tap one and you get the full result card and the scale drawing, exactly as on the Convert tab. The chart runs from 4 ft 0 in (121.92 cm) to 7 ft 11 in (241.3 cm).

Quick tips for better results

• Measure properly. Stand barefoot with your heels, back and head against a wall, and lay something flat and straight (a book works) on top of your head. Mark the wall, then measure up from the floor.
• Measure in the morning if you can. People are often a little taller, around a centimetre, after a night lying down.
• Pick the right unit for the job. Use centimetres for forms that ask for decimals, and whole feet and inches for everyday conversation.

How to convert cm to feet and inches by hand

Everything in the calculator rests on one number. Since 1959, when the United States, the UK and several Commonwealth countries agreed a shared definition of the yard, 1 inch has been exactly 2.54 cm. Not roughly, exactly. From there the rest is simple arithmetic.

Here is a worked example of how to convert cm to feet and inches. Take 175 cm. Divide by 2.54 and you get 68.9 inches. Divide that by 12 and you get 5 with 8.9 left over, so 175 cm is 5 ft 8.9 in, which most people round to 5 ft 9 in. Going the other way, 5 ft 9 in is 5 × 12 + 9 = 69 inches, and 69 × 2.54 = 175.26 cm.

cm to feet and inches chart: 150 cm to 200 cm

This chart covers the heights people look up most often. The middle column is rounded to the nearest inch. The right-hand column keeps one decimal place for anyone who needs it. For any value in between, use the calculator.

Feet and inches to cm chart

Going the other way, here are the heights from 4 ft 10 in to 6 ft 7 in in centimetres. Every figure is exact, because each inch is exactly 2.54 cm.

Compare two heights: how the difference is worked out

The difference is simply the taller height minus the shorter one, shown in centimetres and in inches. The percentage takes that gap and divides it by the shorter person's height, so it answers the question “how much taller is the taller person, compared with the shorter one?” A gap of 30.48 cm between 6 ft and 5 ft is exactly 12 inches, and that is 20% of 5 ft.

The Compare tab works this out for you automatically, for up to four people at once, so you never need to do this sum by hand.

Feet and inches in everyday UK life

Britain is a mixed-measurement country: most official paperwork asks for centimetres and kilograms, while everyday conversation still runs on feet, inches and stones. Height sits right in the middle of that. If you also need your weight in the UK style, the kg to stone and pounds converts kilograms to stones and pounds in the same way.

Plenty of everyday things in the UK are still defined in feet and inches, even when the label says millimetres:

Doors are the one most of us walk through every day. They are usually sold as 1981 mm, which is simply the metric label for 6 ft 6 in.

For a sense of where you fit, UK health surveys put the average adult man at around 175 cm (about 5 ft 9 in) and the average adult woman at around 161 to 162 cm (close to 5 ft 4 in). Averages shift with age, region and the year of the survey, so treat them as a rough guide rather than a target.

Common mistakes when converting height

These are the usual slips, and they are all easy to avoid.

• Treating decimal feet as inches. 5.9 ft is not 5 ft 9 in. The .9 means nine tenths of a foot, which is 10.8 inches, so 5.9 ft is really 5 ft 10.8 in. This is why the calculator shows decimal feet and feet and inches as two separate results.
• Using 30 cm for a foot. A foot is 30.48 cm. Round it down to 30 and 6 ft becomes 180 cm instead of 182.88 cm, an error of nearly 3 cm.
• Rounding too soon. Rounding to the nearest inch can shift your height by up to half an inch, which is 1.27 cm. Keep the decimals until the last step.
• Mixing up cm and mm. 175 cm and 1,750 mm are the same height. 17.5 cm is only 7 inches.
• Forgetting shoes and hair. A thick sole or a tall hairstyle can add a centimetre or more, so measure barefoot.

Frequently asked questions

Tap a question to see the answer.

More free converters and calculators

Height is usually the first number a longer calculation needs. The BMI calculator UK takes the centimetres or metres straight from this page and works out your BMI from there, and you will find the rest of our free tools on the all tools page.

Add this height converter to your website

Want the calculator on your own site or blog? Copy the iframe code below and paste it into the HTML view of your page or post. It is free to use, and the converter appears at the size you set.

• Change width if you want a fixed size instead of the full width of the space it sits in.
• Change height to suit your layout. 900 works well for most pages.

This converter is for general information. For medical or legal measurements, rely on the figure recorded by a professional.