peer-reviewed · sample sizes shown · honest data
Country Size Ranking
Countries with a peer-reviewed regional study, ranked by average erect length. Everything below that is reference-only (the Veale et al. 2015 global pooled average of 13.12 cm applies). Most online "country rankings" are aggregations of self-reported or non-comparable data — we do not include those.
with peer-reviewed regional study
| # | Country | Mean erect (cm) | Sample size | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇮🇳 India | 13.01 | 301 | Promodu, Shanmughadas, Bhat & Nair (2007). Int J Impot Res, 19, 558-563. |
| 2 | 🇺🇸 United States | 12.9 | 80 | Wessells, Lue & McAninch (1996). J Urol, 156, 995-997. |
| 3 | 🇪🇬 Egypt | 12.58 | 2,000 | Shalaby et al. (2015). Arab J Urol, 13(3), 197-201. |
| 4 | 🇮🇹 Italy | 12.5 | 3,300 | Ponchietti et al. (2001). Eur Urol, 39(2), 183-186. |
| — | Global pooled (BJU 2015) | 13.12 | 15,521 | Veale et al. (2015) |
no peer-reviewed regional study — global baseline applies
Why our ranking is shorter than the ones you find elsewhere
Most "country size ranking" pages online aggregate data from sources with incompatible methodologies — mixing self-reported survey data with physician-measured data, and pooling studies with sample sizes of 20 with studies of 3,000+ as if they were equal. We do not do that.
We only include a country in the measured-data table when a peer-reviewed regional study with a published sample size exists. For everything else, the Veale et al. (2015) BJU meta-analysis (n=15,521) is the honest baseline.
Between-country variation is small
Even with the best data, the differences between country means in the peer-reviewed literature are typically under 1 cm — smaller than the standard deviation within any single country. Translated: where you fall on the distribution inside your own country matters far more than your country's mean.
See where you stand
The percentile calculator tells you more than any country mean can.
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