Height Converter — Feet & Inches ⇄ cm

Height Converter: Feet and Inches to Centimetres in One Step

Height is one of those numbers people carry around in two systems at once. In India, most of us say our height in feet and inches — "five feet seven", "five three" — because that is how families, tailors, matrimonial profiles and friends talk about it. But almost every official document asks for centimetres: passport and visa forms, medical reports, gym assessments, school health cards, and especially army, police and paramilitary recruitment notices, which state minimum heights in cm. This free height converter removes the guesswork. Enter feet and inches and it gives you the exact height in centimetres, metres, total inches and decimal feet. Switch direction, type centimetres, and it tells you the height in feet and inches, rounded to the nearest tenth of an inch.

Below the converter there is a complete height chart from 4 ft 6 in to 7 ft 0 in, one row for every inch, with centimetres and metres side by side. Everything runs in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere, and the page keeps working even if your internet drops after it has loaded.

How to Use the Height Converter

1. Pick the direction. Choose Feet & inches → cm if you know your height the Indian way, or cm → feet & inches if a report or form gave it to you in centimetres.
2. Enter the height. For feet and inches, type the feet in the first box and the inches in the second. Half inches are fine — 5 ft 6.5 in works. For centimetres, type the number, decimals allowed.
3. Read the result. The large figure shows the main answer. Underneath you get the same height in centimetres, metres, total inches and decimal feet, which is handy for spreadsheets and BMI formulas.
4. Use the chart. Scroll the height chart to compare several heights at once, for example when checking a recruitment cut-off or comparing family members.
5. Copy or share. Copy the result to paste into a form or chat, or share the page link.

The Formula Behind Every Height Conversion

The conversion rests on one exact number. Since the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, one inch has been defined as exactly 2.54 centimetres. That is a definition, not a measurement, so there is no rounding hidden inside it. From it follow the rest:

• 1 inch = 2.54 cm
• 1 foot = 12 inches = 30.48 cm
• 1 metre = 100 cm ≈ 39.37 inches ≈ 3 ft 3.4 in

Feet and inches to cm: first convert everything to inches, then multiply by 2.54.

cm = (feet × 12 + inches) × 2.54

Centimetres to feet and inches: divide by 2.54 to get total inches. The whole number of twelves is the feet, and what is left over is the inches.

total inches = cm ÷ 2.54 · feet = floor(total inches ÷ 12) · inches = total inches − feet × 12

The converter rounds the inch part to one decimal place. If rounding pushes it to 12.0, it correctly rolls over to the next foot, so you will never see a nonsense answer like "5 ft 12 in".

Worked Examples

Example 1: 5 ft 7 in to cm

5 × 12 = 60, plus 7 = 67 inches. 67 × 2.54 = 170.18 cm, or 1.70 m. This is one of the most searched heights in India because it sits close to the average height of young urban men.

Example 2: 5 ft 2 in to cm

5 × 12 + 2 = 62 inches. 62 × 2.54 = 157.48 cm. Many women's recruitment notices set minimum heights around 152–158 cm, so knowing your exact figure matters.

Example 3: 165 cm to feet and inches

165 ÷ 2.54 = 64.96 inches. 64.96 ÷ 12 = 5 with 4.96 left over, which rounds to 5.0. The answer is 5 ft 5 in.

Example 4: 180 cm to feet and inches

180 ÷ 2.54 = 70.87 inches = 5 ft 10.9 in — just under 5 ft 11 in. People often round 180 cm up to "six feet" in conversation, but six feet is actually 182.88 cm.

Height Chart Highlights

The full chart is in the tool above. Here are the rows people look up most often:

A useful mental shortcut: every extra inch adds about 2.5 cm, and every 5 cm adds roughly 2 inches. So if you know 5 ft 0 in is 152.4 cm, you can count up quickly — 5 ft 4 in is about 10 cm more, around 162.6 cm.

Where You Will Need Height in Centimetres

Recruitment and physical tests

Defence, police, CAPF, railway protection and similar recruitment notices specify minimum heights in centimetres, often with different limits for different states, categories and genders. During the physical measurement test, height is measured on a stadiometer in cm. Convert your height before applying so you know whether you meet the requirement, and always read the latest official notification for the exact limits and any relaxations — they change between notifications.

Medical and fitness records

Doctors, hospitals and labs record height in cm, and many health formulas need it in metres. BMI, for instance, is weight in kg divided by height in metres squared. Our BMI calculator accepts both units, and the metres figure from this converter can be plugged straight into spreadsheet formulas.

Travel documents and international forms

Visa applications and some ID forms abroad ask for height in centimetres, while American forms usually want feet and inches. The converter works both ways, so you can fill either correctly.

Clothing, furniture and sports gear

Size charts for cycles, treadmills, desks, kurtas and sports equipment are often in cm. Knowing your height precisely saves a return.

How to Measure Your Height Accurately at Home

A conversion is only as good as the measurement you start with. To measure height reliably:

• Remove footwear, and loosen any hairstyle that adds height on top.
• Stand on a hard floor with your back, heels, buttocks and the back of your head touching a flat wall.
• Keep feet together and look straight ahead, so your gaze is level.
• Ask someone to rest a flat object — a hardbound book or a ruler — on top of your head at a right angle to the wall, and mark the spot lightly.
• Measure from the floor to the mark with a steel tape. Read in centimetres if your tape has them, or in inches and convert here.

Height is slightly greater in the morning than at night, because the discs in the spine compress a little through the day. The difference is often around a centimetre. If you are measuring for a test, be aware that the official reading may be taken at any time of day.

Common Mistakes When Converting Height

• Treating 5.7 feet as 5 ft 7 in. 5.7 feet in decimal is 5 ft 8.4 in, not 5 ft 7 in. Feet and inches are base-12, not base-10. This is why the converter shows decimal feet separately.
• Multiplying feet by 30 instead of 30.48. The shortcut adds up: at 6 feet the error is almost 3 cm.
• Rounding too early. Convert the total inches first, then round once at the end.
• Confusing metres with feet. 1.7 m is about 5 ft 7 in, not 1 ft 7 in — always check the unit label.

Average Height Context

National surveys in India commonly put average adult height at roughly 165 cm (about 5 ft 5 in) for men and around 152 cm (about 5 ft 0 in) for women, with real differences between regions and generations. These are broad averages, not targets: healthy height varies widely, and it is shaped by genetics, nutrition in childhood and many other factors. If you are tracking a child's growth, a paediatrician can compare measurements with appropriate growth charts.

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Height Converter (Feet to cm) — Key Facts

Frequently Asked Questions

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