The growth of Napoleon Bonaparte has long been a byword. The emperor’s brilliant career is cited as an example, comforting people who suffer because of their small stature. Napoleon's imperial ambitions are explained by an inferiority complex, allegedly associated with insufficient growth.
The question of the growth of Napoleon Bonaparte is not only a question of a specific anthropometric indicator. “Short” or, conversely, “tall” a person happens in the eyes of others. This is determined by how correlates the growth of a particular person with average growth.
Napoleon's height in centimeters
In 1821, the deposed emperor died on the island of St. Elena. Immediately after his death, Napoleon’s personal physician performed an autopsy, and the results were recorded. Recorded in these records and the growth of Napoleon. The doctor recorded it as "5/2". He probably used the French system of measures, and it should be read as "5 feet 2 inches." If you translate this indicator into the English system, which was slightly different from the French, you get 5 feet 6.5 inches.
If we transfer these data to the modern metric system, we get 169 cm. For a modern person, this is really below average growth, but still not so much that a person feels "short" and is tormented by an inferiority complex!
Moreover, contemporaries could not consider Napoleon stunted, because the average growth in those days was from 164 to 168 cm.
