Height Converter: Feet and Inches to cm and Back

How to use this tool

Type a height on whichever side you have it. Feet and inches on the left, with a fraction picker for the eighths that tape measures use, gives you centimetres, metres and millimetres. Centimetres on the right gives you feet and inches, rounded the way you choose: to the nearest inch, which is how heights are spoken, to the nearest eighth, which is how they are measured, or not rounded at all. The two sides stay in step, so typing in one updates the other.

The dark panel at the top always shows the height you last touched, both ways. Below it, the ruler places that height on a centimetre scale and a feet and inches scale at once, the common heights row jumps straight to the values people ask about most, and the chart lists the eleven centimetre values around yours so you can see how the inches change one centimetre at a time.

The setting people most often get wrong is decimal feet. If a form or a fitness app shows 5.58 ft, that is not 5 feet 58 of anything; it is 5 feet plus 0.58 of a foot, which is 7 inches. The converter shows decimal feet alongside the feet and inches so you can tell them apart. The other trap is entering 6 ft 0.5 in as 6.05: half an inch goes in the inches box or the fraction picker, never as a decimal on the feet.

Every export carries the height you entered and nothing else. Copy result puts the headline on your clipboard, Copy link gives an address that reopens the converter on the same height, and the CSV, image and printed report list the same figure in every form.

Why the conversion is exact and the answers still need rounding

An inch has been exactly 2.54 centimetres since 1959, when the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa signed the international yard and pound agreement. Before that, the American inch was 2.540005 cm and the British inch 2.539996 cm, differences that mattered to machinists and to nobody measuring people. Since the agreement, converting a height is pure arithmetic with no measured constant in it: multiply inches by 2.54, or divide centimetres by 2.54.

The rounding comes from how heights are written, not from the maths. Feet and inches are quoted to a whole inch, centimetres to a whole centimetre, and an inch is 2.54 of those centimetres, so the two systems can never both land on round numbers at the same height except at zero. 170 cm is 5 ft 6.93 in and gets called 5 ft 7 in; 5 ft 7 in is 170.18 cm and gets called 170 cm. Each rounds to the other, and the 1.8 mm between them is smaller than the change in your own height between morning and evening.

That is also why converted heights carry fractions on a tape measure. A 6 foot door frame is 182.88 cm; a 2 metre one is 6 ft 6.74 in. If you need the fraction, the eighths setting matches what a tape shows, and the exact setting gives you the full decimal for a drawing.

A worked check you can repeat on paper

Take 5 feet 4 inches. Five feet is 60 inches, add 4 to get 64, and 64 × 2.54 = 162.56 cm. To the nearest centimetre that is 163 cm, and in metres it is 1.6256 m.

Now go back from 170 cm. Divide by 2.54: 170 ÷ 2.54 = 66.929 inches. Take out whole feet: 66.929 ÷ 12 = 5 remainder 6.929, so 5 ft 6.929 in. To the nearest inch that is 5 ft 7 in, to the nearest eighth it is 5 ft 6 7/8 in, and as decimal feet it is 66.929 ÷ 12 = 5.577 ft. The converter reports exactly these numbers with 170 in the centimetres box, so if yours differ, check that you divided by 2.54 rather than multiplied.

Where each convention is used

The United States quotes adult height in feet and inches almost everywhere: driver licences, sports rosters, dating profiles and medical charts, though clinics increasingly record centimetres alongside. The United Kingdom talks in feet and inches and writes centimetres on official documents. Canada is split by age and setting: passports, health records and schools use centimetres, conversation still tends to feet and inches. Nearly everywhere else, centimetres or metres are the only form used.

Clothing, sport and aviation each have their own habits. Bike frames and ski lengths are sized in centimetres worldwide. Basketball and football rosters list feet and inches in North America and centimetres elsewhere. Airline and rail seat pitch is quoted in inches even in metric countries. When you meet a height in the wrong system for the context, this page is the fastest way to put it in the right one, and the copy link means you can send the converted figure with the working attached.

Mistakes that catch people out

Reading decimal feet as feet and inches. 5.5 ft is 5 ft 6 in, not 5 ft 5 in. 5.11 ft is 5 ft 1.3 in, nowhere near 5 ft 11 in. The converter shows both forms for exactly this reason; when a number has a decimal point after the feet, it is decimal feet.

Multiplying centimetres by 2.54. Going from centimetres to inches you divide. 170 × 2.54 is 431.8, which would make you a giant. If an answer looks absurd, the operation is backwards.

Rounding twice. Converting 5 ft 7 in to 170.18, rounding to 170, then converting back gives 5 ft 6.93 in, which rounds to 5 ft 7 in this time but will not always. Keep the exact figure until the last step and round once.

Treating 6 feet and 180 cm as the same height. 6 ft is 182.88 cm, and 180 cm is 5 ft 10.87 in. Nearly three centimetres separate them, more than an inch, and both numbers get used loosely as the same threshold.

Using the wrong inch fraction on a tape. Tapes are marked in sixteenths and eighths, not tenths. 5 ft 6.5 in is 5 ft 6 4/8 in, and 0.9 of an inch is closest to 7/8, not to 9 of anything. The eighths setting on the centimetres side shows the mark you would actually read.

Centimetres to feet and inches, 140 cm to 210 cm

Every whole centimetre from 4 ft 7 in to 6 ft 11 in. Each link opens the converter on that height with its own address, so you can bookmark or share the one you need.

Feet and inches to centimetres, 4 ft 0 in to 7 ft 0 in

Every whole inch across the adult range, with the exact centimetre figure in the label.

Half inch heights

The heights people are given when a nurse or a tailor measures to the half inch.

How this was checked

The conversion is one exact multiplication, so the checks are on the rounding and the splitting rather than on the factor. Every height from 100 cm to 250 cm in half centimetre steps was split into feet and inches and multiplied back, and every one returned the original value to within a billionth of a centimetre. The inch remainders were checked never to reach 12 after rounding, which is the case that turns 5 ft 11.99 in into 5 ft 12 in on careless converters; here it rolls over to 6 ft 0 in.

The fraction display was checked against the tape marks it imitates: 6.93 inches shows as 6 7/8, 6.5 as 6 1/2, 0.375 as 3/8, and 7.0625 as 7 1/8. The worked figures in the article, 162.56 cm for 5 ft 4 in, 170.18 cm for 5 ft 7 in, 182.88 cm for 6 ft and 66.929 inches for 170 cm, were confirmed by hand and by the tool.

Common questions

How do you convert feet and inches to cm?

Turn the height into inches first, then multiply by 2.54. Five feet four inches is 5 × 12 + 4 = 64 inches, and 64 × 2.54 = 162.56 cm. The factor is exact, so the only rounding is whatever you choose to apply at the end.

How do you convert cm to feet and inches?

Divide the centimetres by 2.54 to get inches, take whole feet out by dividing by 12, and what is left is the inches. 170 cm is 66.93 inches, which is 5 feet with 6.93 inches over, so 5 ft 7 in to the nearest inch.

Is 170 cm the same as 5 feet 7 inches?

Nearly. 5 ft 7 in is 170.18 cm and 170 cm is 5 ft 6.93 in. The two differ by 1.8 millimetres, so each is the usual way of writing the other, but on a form that asks for an exact figure use the converter and copy the number it gives.

What is 5 feet 10 inches in cm?

177.8 cm. That is 70 inches multiplied by 2.54. Rounded to the nearest centimetre it is 178 cm, which is how it would appear on a metric passport or medical record.

Why does my height come out as 5.58 feet instead of 5 feet 7 inches?

5.58 feet is decimal feet, the whole height divided by 12 inches. It is correct but not how heights are written. 0.58 of a foot is 0.58 × 12 = 6.96 inches, which rounds to 7, giving 5 ft 7 in. Never read 5.58 feet as 5 feet 58 anything.

How tall is 6 feet in cm and metres?

6 feet is exactly 182.88 cm, or 1.8288 metres. Six footers are usually recorded as 183 cm on metric documents. Going the other way, 180 cm is 5 ft 10.87 in, so a person listed as 180 cm is just under 5 ft 11 in, not 6 feet.

Related Calculators and Reference

• Length Converter: inches, feet, centimetres, millimetres and miles for anything that is not a person.
• Kg to Lbs Converter: the weight half of a metric to imperial body measurement.
• Age Calculator: exact age in years, months and days for the same forms that ask for height.
• Decimal to Fraction Converter: turn 0.93 of an inch into the nearest tape measure fraction at any precision.
• Temperature Converter: Celsius and Fahrenheit, the other conversion every traveller between the two systems needs.
• Shoe Size Converter: convert a foot length into shoe sizes in several countries.
• Snowboard Size Calculator: use your height in cm to get a board length range.
• Ski Size Calculator: use your height in cm to get a ski length range.
• Child Height Predictor: convert a child’s height and both parents’ heights before estimating adult height.
• NIST Special Publication 811: the reference that fixes the inch at exactly 2.54 centimetres.