Height Percentile Calculator

A height percentile places one child among children of the same age and sex in a reference population. At the 62nd percentile, a child is taller than about 62 in 100 of them and shorter than about 38. The 50th percentile is the median: half the reference population is taller and half shorter. The 3rd and 97th percentiles are the outer curves printed on most growth charts, and the calculator shows both for the age you enter so the result has a context, not just a number.

Percentiles describe a population, not a target. Healthy children are found across the whole range, and a percentile says nothing on its own about whether a child is growing well; that is a question of how their measurements move over time, which is why clinicians plot repeated measurements on a chart.

Two published references are offered. The WHO option uses the WHO Child Growth Standards from birth to 5 years and the WHO 2007 Growth Reference from 5 to 19 years; together they cover birth to 19 years and are used internationally. The CDC option uses the 2000 CDC growth charts, the set used in the United States, from birth to 20 years. Both references measure children under 2 years lying down (recumbent length) and from 2 years standing, and the calculator says which applies.

The two were built from different populations and methods, so the same height at the same age can land on slightly different percentiles. Neither is wrong; each describes its own reference population, and the page always names the one in use. HeightViz reads both from the published data files and does not adjust or blend them.

Both references publish three numbers for every age and sex: L, M and S. M is the median height, S its coefficient of variation, and L the power that makes the distribution symmetric (the LMS method). A height x becomes a z-score, ((x ÷ M)^L − 1) ÷ (L × S), and the percentile is the share of a standard normal distribution below that z-score. Between two published ages the three values are interpolated; nothing else is estimated.

Worked example on the WHO tables for a boy of 10 years: the published median is 137.8 cm, so a boy of exactly that height has a z-score of 0 and sits at the 50th percentile. A boy of 150.5 cm is two standard deviations above the median: a z-score of +2, the 97.7th percentile. The 3rd and 97th percentiles at that age are 125.8 cm and 149.8 cm.

A percentile from a single measurement is a snapshot. It does not show whether a child has always been on that curve, is crossing curves, or is growing at the expected pace for their age, and it says nothing about puberty timing, family heights or health. Growth monitoring is done by measuring the same child repeatedly and reading the pattern, together with everything else a clinician knows; this page does none of that and does not interpret a result. Questions about a child's growth belong with a clinician.

To see the curves themselves and plot a point on them, open the growth chart. For an estimate of adult height from the parents' heights, the height predictor applies the mid-parental method. The age and height you enter stay in your browser; a shared link carries only the sex, reference, age and height.

• CDC National Center for Health Statistics, 2000 CDC Growth Charts: percentile data files with LMS values — statage.csv (stature-for-age, 2 to 20 years) and lenageinf.csv (length-for-age, birth to 36 months): L, M and S by sex and age in months. Checked 2026-09-20.
• WHO Child Growth Standards: length/height-for-age, birth to 5 years (z-score tables) — Monthly L, M and S for boys and girls: recumbent length to 24 months, standing height from 24 to 60 months. Checked 2026-09-20.
• WHO Growth Reference 2007: height-for-age, 5 to 19 years (z-score expanded tables) — Monthly L, M and S for boys and girls from 61 to 228 months. Checked 2026-09-20.