Height Converter
Turn a height in centimetres into feet and inches using the exact international inch definition.
Exact factor
The conversion uses the official definition that one inch is exactly 2.54 centimetres — never a rounded approximation.
Inch rounding
Feet are always whole, so the leftover inches carry the fractional part and are commonly rounded to the nearest inch.
What is a height converter?
Centimetres to feet and inches
A height converter changes a height measured in centimetres into the feet-and-inches format used across the United States, United Kingdom, and other imperial-system countries. It is the everyday tool for reading a metric height on a passport, fitness app, or medical chart in a unit that feels familiar — turning 180 cm into 5 ft 11 in, or 165 cm into 5 ft 5 in. Because human height sits in a narrow range, the result is almost always a single-digit number of feet plus a handful of inches.
Enter a height in centimetres and read it instantly in feet and inches.
The height is first turned into total inches, then that total is split into whole feet and the inches left over.
Total inches = cm ÷ 2.54, then split into feet and inchesDividing by 2.54 converts centimetres to inches, because an inch is defined as exactly 2.54 cm. Dividing the total inches by 12 and taking the whole-number part gives the feet; whatever inches remain after removing those full feet are the inch portion. The same two steps work for any height, and reversing them — multiplying feet and inches back into centimetres — recovers the original metric value.
Suppose you want to convert 180 cm into feet and inches.
Convert to total inches
Divide by 2.54: 180 ÷ 2.54 = 70.87 inches.
Take the whole feet
Divide by 12 and floor: 70.87 ÷ 12 = 5.9, so 5 whole feet.
Find the leftover inches
Subtract those feet: 70.87 − 5 × 12 = 10.87, about 10.9 inches.
Read the result
180 cm is 5 ft 10.9 in, usually rounded to 5 ft 11 in.
A few common heights make the scale easy to picture: 150 cm is about 4 ft 11 in, 165 cm is roughly 5 ft 5 in, 180 cm is just under 5 ft 11 in, and 195 cm is about 6 ft 5 in. Each extra centimetre adds a little under half an inch, so two heights only a centimetre apart can round to the same feet-and-inches reading. To go the other way and turn a feet-and-inches height back into centimetres, add the feet and inches into total inches — feet × 12 + inches — and multiply by 2.54. For instance, 5 ft 11 in is 71 inches, and 71 × 2.54 ≈ 180.3 cm.
The arithmetic is exact; the only limit is how the leftover inches are rounded.
Rounding the inch remainder
Feet are always whole numbers, so the fractional part of the height lands entirely in the inches. Rounding that remainder to the nearest whole inch can shift the reading by up to half an inch, and a height a hair under a full foot — such as 11.9 inches — may round up to the next foot. When precision matters, keep the inch value with its decimal rather than rounding, or work directly in total inches or centimetres.