Why Are Dutch People So Tall? The Science Behind the World's Tallest Nation

Visit the Netherlands and you'll notice it within minutes: everyone seems to tower. It's not your imagination — the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. Dutch men average around 6 feet (183 cm) and Dutch women around 5'7" (170 cm), comfortably ahead of nearly every other country. For comparison, the average American man stands about 5'9".

As a Dutch family running a bakery in Georgia, we get asked about this constantly — usually right after someone asks us to explain what a stroopwafel is. So here's the real answer, according to the researchers who study it.

How tall are Dutch people, exactly?

The average height in the Netherlands is roughly 183–184 cm (about 6 ft) for men and 170 cm (5'7") for women. What makes this remarkable is how recent it is: in the mid-1800s, Dutch men were among the shorter Europeans, averaging around 5'5". In about 150 years, the Dutch gained some 20 centimeters — one of the fastest growth spurts ever recorded in a population.

Reason 1: The dairy-heavy Dutch diet

The Netherlands is a dairy superpower — milk, cheese, butter, and yogurt are everyday staples from childhood on. All that calcium and protein during growth years is widely considered a major driver of Dutch height. (Dutch kids famously drink milk with lunch and dinner.) Add abundant vegetables, fish, and — yes — the occasional caramel waffle cookie, and you have a nutrition profile built for growing.

Reason 2: Genetics — and even natural selection

Height is strongly heritable, and researchers have found something fascinating in the Dutch data: a large study of people in the northern Netherlands found that taller Dutch men, on average, had more children than shorter men over recent decades. In other words, natural selection may literally have been nudging the Dutch taller — something not observed in, for example, the United States, where the same study found the opposite pattern.

Reason 3: Healthcare and equality

Height isn't just genes and milk — it's a barometer of childhood wellbeing. The Netherlands combines universal healthcare, low child poverty, and one of the world's most even income distributions. When nearly every child grows up well-fed and healthy, a population reaches more of its genetic height potential. Historians point out that Dutch height took off in exactly the period the country's living standards did.

The surprising part: the Dutch have stopped growing

Here's the twist most articles miss: Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported that Dutch people born after 1980 are actually slightly shorter than the generation before them. Researchers point to more processed food, less milk-drinking, and immigration from shorter populations. The Dutch are still the world's tallest — but the famous growth spurt has leveled off.

Life in a tall country

Dutch daily life is built for height: doorframes in old canal houses that foreigners duck through were built centuries ago for much shorter people, while modern Dutch building codes specify taller doors than most countries. Bikes come in frame sizes that would count as XXL elsewhere. And the national snack? A thin waffle cookie you rest on your coffee — fuel for tall people on the go.

The tall-person snack, baked fresh in the USA

Whatever your height, the Dutch tradition worth adopting is the coffee break: a hot drink with a fresh stroopwafel warming on top. Our Dutch family bakes them fresh in Fayetteville, Georgia — the same recipe that fueled all those tall generations — and ships them anywhere in the US.

Shop fresh-baked stroopwafels →
Or grab our protein stroopwafels — popular with cyclists and runners of every height.

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