Top 10 Tallest Humans in History

#10 — Don Koehler 248.9 cm

American Don Koehler, born in 1925 in Montana, stood 248.9 centimetres and was recognised as the world's tallest man for most of the 1960s and 70s. He was the taller of a pair of twins, and his height was the result of an overactive pituitary gland.

Koehler worked as a travelling performer and was one of the most publicly visible giants of his era. He died in 1981 at the age of 55 — one of the longest-lived people on this list. On NGFINITY's shared ruler, his full height is already more than 70 centimetres above the average adult male.

#9 — Bernard Coyne 249 cm

American Bernard Coyne measured 249 centimetres at the time of his death in 1921. He was still actively growing when he was drafted into the US Army during the First World War — a process that took a severe physical toll on his body, since standard uniforms, barracks, and transport were not built for anyone close to his size.

He was one of the tallest soldiers ever to serve in the US military. His story is a striking reminder of the medical toll that untreated gigantism can take on the human body, even in the early 20th century.

#8 — Väinö Myllyrinne 251 cm

Finnish man Väinö Myllyrinne was recognised as the tallest person in the world during the 1930s and 40s. He stood 251 centimetres at his peak adult height and was carefully measured by European medical researchers of his era.

His height is one of the most reliably documented on this list, because physicians studied him extensively as a medical case in Finland. At 251 cm, he is a full 76 centimetres taller than the average adult male — a difference visible instantly against the NGFINITY ruler.

#7 — Édouard Beaupré 251 cm

Canadian Édouard Beaupré, known as the "Willow Bunch Giant", stood 251 centimetres and was one of the most famous strongmen and performers of the early 20th century. He was born in Saskatchewan in 1881 to a Métis family.

He toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and became a well-known figure across North America. His remains are still preserved and on display at the University of Montreal — one of the last physical legacies of 19th-century gigantism, and a reminder of how medical science studied these cases in an era before modern endocrinology.

#6 — Sultan Kösen 251 cm

Turkish farmer Sultan Kösen is the tallest living man in the world, officially verified by Guinness World Records at 251 centimetres. He was born in Mardin, Turkey, in 1982 and is the only person on this list who is still alive today. He is officially recognised as the 7th tallest verified person in medical history, and among fully verified individuals who were able to stand unaided, he ranks in the top three or four.

Kösen uses crutches to walk because of the strain his height places on his joints, and he has undergone treatment for the pituitary condition that caused his gigantism. He has travelled internationally as an ambassador for Guinness World Records and remains the most recognisable figure in modern height records. On the NGFINITY ruler, his 251 cm places him a full 76 centimetres above the average adult male — and equal to Beaupré and Myllyrinne, the two other verified giants he shares this band with.

#3 — John F. Carroll 244 cm standing / 263 cm corrected

American John F. Carroll, known as the "Buffalo Giant", was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1932 and documented extensively by medical researchers — including the prominent anatomist Wilton M. Krogman — who studied him as one of the most precisely measured cases of gigantism on record.

One important clarification about his height: because Carroll suffered from severe kyphoscoliosis (a pronounced curvature of the spine), his actual standing measurement was 244 cm — around 8 feet 0 inches. The widely-cited figure of 263 cm is a medical estimate of what his standing height would have been had his spine been straight. Both numbers appear in his documentation; the 263 cm figure represents his corrected, curvature-adjusted height, and the 244 cm figure represents what a tape measure actually recorded while he was alive. He died in 1969 at the age of 37.

#2 — John William Rogan 267 cm

American John William Rogan is the second-tallest person ever verified. He stood 267 centimetres — around 8 feet 9 inches — and is the tallest African American in recorded history. He was born in Tennessee in the 1860s and died in 1905.

Unlike Wadlow, Rogan was unable to stand or walk unaided for most of his adult life because of ankylosis of the joints, which meant his height was measured while seated or bedridden. He remains one of the most extreme documented cases of gigantism in medical history. Placed next to a standard 175 cm reference figure on the NGFINITY canvas, he towers nearly a full metre above the average adult.

#1 — Robert Wadlow 272 cm

American Robert Wadlow is the tallest human being in recorded history. He stood 272 centimetres — 8 feet 11.1 inches — at the time of his death in 1940 at the age of 22. He is known as the "Alton Giant" after his hometown of Alton, Illinois, and his height was the result of hyperplasia of the pituitary gland, a condition that caused his body to continue growing throughout his entire life.

Wadlow was still growing when he died — his final measurement was taken just weeks before. His shoes were size 37AA (roughly 47 cm long), and he required custom-made furniture, a modified car, and specially tailored clothing. He wore leg braces for much of his adult life because the nerves in his legs could not properly support his height.

Against the NGFINITY shared ruler, Wadlow stands a full 97 centimetres above the average adult male — nearly a metre — and towers over every other giant on this list. He is the benchmark against which every extreme-height case of the past century has been measured.