People who live in the Netherlands aren't all the same, but if you average their heights, they are the tallest nation on earth, with men averaging 5'11.85" and women averaging 5'6.42". It's not that tall people settled in that area, nor is it completely genetic (although natural selection may factor in just a bit). It's certainly not the wooden shoes.
A land of giants, the Netherlands is the loftiest nation on Earth: the average height of a Dutch man is 182.5cm; a Dutch woman 168.7cm. By comparison their American counterparts measure 177.1cm and 163.5cm respectively. It wasn’t always this way. A review of Dutch military records for a study published by the Royal Society of London found that in the mid-1800s, men in the Netherlands were actually among the shortest people in Europe.
“In 1860, Dutch military men were about 165cm tall,” said Professor Louise Barrett of the University of Lethbridge, Canada, who was part of the study. “At that time men in the US were around 5cm taller.” This, added Barrett, made Americans the world’s tallest people.
Since then, however, there has been a remarkable role reversal: in just 160 years, Dutch men have shot up by 20cm, soaring past their American counterparts, who have grown just 6cm.
As you might guess, there are several factors that play a role in Dutch height, one which has to do with their engineering of the sea level. Read how the Dutch grew over a couple hundred years at BBC Travel. -via Nag on the Lake