The smallest people in the world live on the 11,883 square kilometer Southeast Asian island of East Timor.
The average Timorese man is only 1.75 meters tall, while the average woman is 1.20 meters tall.
Several other countries in Southeast Asia also made the list, including Laos and the Philippines, which experts say is because their ancestors adapted the smaller stature to withstand the overwhelming heat.
The US is not among the 25 countries with the shortest people – the average man is 5 feet 8 inches, while women are about 5 feet 8 inches tall.
The UK didn’t make the top 25 either – men are only five feet five inches tall on average there, while women are five feet five inches tall.
Data shows that the top 25 countries are home to the shortest people. The data, which shows the average height of men and women combined for each country, spans 25 countries. The US and UK did not make the list
The smallest people in the world live on the 11,883 square kilometer Southeast Asian island of East Timor. The average Timorese man is 1.85 meters tall, while the average woman is 1.20 meters tall
The data is compiled by Insider, which pulled information from NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, a medical database linked to Imperial College London. It separates the average height of men and women for each country. Insider then took an average of those two figures for each of the countries.
Scientists estimate that about 80 percent of an individual’s height is determined by their inherited DNA sequence variations.
In 2010, a team at Harvard Medical School identified hundreds of mutations responsible for about 10 percent of the hereditary height difference between humans.
They found hundreds of variants associated with height in at least 180 different places in the human genome.
These mutations consistently cluster around genes from at least six different biological pathways – many close to those already known to be involved in skeletal growth syndromes.
Others implicate previously unrecognized genetic growth regulators and open up new possibilities for biological studies of height.
And the 2010 study explains why those living in East Timor are the shortest in the world.
Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, is a small island divided into two parts and shared by the Indonesian capital of Kupang.
At the same time, the Portuguese occupy the eastern part of this island, but the smallest people in the world live in the southeast.
In 1896, the height of the natives did not exceed five feet.
In the 20th century, however, settlers from Portugal and Indonesia moved in, leading to a change in the appearance of the natives.
But by the 1970s, the Timorese had grown to an average of five feet tall, but then saw them shrink to five feet or less due to a civil war that affected their evolution.
This is because people no longer moved around the island and mated with different ethnicities.
Interestingly, the second group of the shortest people also live in Southeast Asia – Laos.
This country is known for its rolling hills, Buddhist temples and beautiful sights.
The average man in Laos is 1.55 meters tall and the average woman is 1.20 meters tall.
And the Philippines, also a country in Southeast Asia, made the list and ranked fifth.
The Netherlands is now the highest country in the world. Males measure 5 feet 11.86 inches on average and females are 5 feet 6.42 inches tall.
Researchers have suggested that the country’s leading health care system and low income inequality may play a role in the skyrocketing population.