The short answer
A giraffe is the tallest animal on Earth. Adult males stand about 5.5 metres (18 feet) tall, and females about 4.3–4.6 metres (14–15 feet). Males typically weigh 1,100–1,900 kg and females 700–950 kg. Even a newborn calf is around 1.8 metres (6 feet) tall. Roughly a third of that height is neck, a third is legs, and the rest is body and head. Being this tall is a brilliant feeding strategy — and, as we'll see, an engineering problem the giraffe's whole body is built to solve.
Giraffe size at a glance
| Measure | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Height | ~5.0–5.5 m (16–18 ft) | ~4.3–4.6 m (14–15 ft) |
| Weight | ~1,100–1,900 kg | ~700–950 kg |
| Neck length | ~2 m | ~1.8 m |
| Newborn height | ~1.8 m | ~1.8 m |
| Newborn weight | ~50–70 kg | ~50–70 kg |
Height is usually measured from the ground to the top of the ossicones (the horn-like structures on the head). The tallest reliably recorded giraffes approached 5.8 metres, but 5.5 m is a typical big bull.
How a giraffe compares
Numbers are easier to feel with a comparison:
- A giraffe is taller than a double-decker bus (~4.4 m).
- It could look over a two-storey house.
- A tall human man reaches roughly the height of a giraffe's knee to mid-leg.
- Its newborn calf is already taller than most adult humans.
The Masai giraffe is generally the largest and tallest of the four species, though big individuals occur across all of them. Which species you're looking at is best judged by coat pattern and range, not height alone.
Why giraffes are so tall
Height is not vanity — it is a feeding niche. By browsing 4–6 metres up, giraffes reach a band of leaves that almost no other animal can, sidestepping competition with every shorter herbivore on the savanna. That reach comes mostly from the neck, which is about two metres long yet built from just seven vertebrae — the same number as in your neck, each one hugely elongated. Exactly why the neck grew so long is a live scientific debate explored in why giraffes have long necks.
The hidden costs of being tall
Extreme height forces the rest of the body to adapt in remarkable ways:
- Blood pressure. The heart must pump blood two metres straight up to the brain, which requires the highest blood pressure of any mammal and an 11 kg heart. See the giraffe heart.
- Drinking is dangerous. To reach water, a giraffe must splay its legs and lower its head far below its heart — a manoeuvre that would black out most animals, prevented by special pressure-buffering anatomy. It also leaves the giraffe briefly vulnerable to predators.
- Birth is a long drop. Because mothers give birth standing, the ~1.8 m newborn calf falls roughly 1.5–2 metres into the world — a jolt that actually helps start its breathing.
Everything striking about a giraffe's body — its heart, its blood vessels, the way it drinks and is born — is the price of being the tallest animal alive.
Do giraffes keep growing?
Giraffes do most of their growing in their first few years and reach full height as young adults. Males continue to fill out and grow heavier with age, and their ossicones and skulls thicken — useful for the "necking" contests in which bulls swing their heads at each other. So while an old bull isn't much taller than a young adult, he is markedly heavier and more powerfully built.
Keep reading
- Why do giraffes have long necks?
- The giraffe heart and blood pressure
- Baby giraffes: birth to independence
Sources
Reviewed against Giraffe Conservation Foundation and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance sources. Last updated July 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us — a reference earns trust by correcting fast.