Accuracy
Obtaining accurate height information is not always easy. Most people do not measure their height routinely and they often do not report their true height. It is common for people to round up, sometimes by an inch or more. We suggest you use the reported height as an approximation. In general, we prefer to use the height of a person at the peak of their career. Unfortunately, our sources rarely list age along with height. A person's height can decrease by as much as an inch every 20 years.

Sources
37% Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
We are grateful that this resource exists. However, some height data is submitted by IMDb readers and may not be accurate. We have seen heights listed on IMDb differ by up to five inches from other sources.
11% The Truth About Your Height
by Thomas T. Samaras.
11% A Short History: Thumbnail Sketches of 50 Little Giants
by Joan Kanel Slomanson and Illustrated by T. R. Nimen.
6% Dan's World: Heights of Famous People
This Web site was constructed by Dan Harbord.
3% The Height of Your Life
by Ralph Keyes.
32% Miscellaneous other Web resources.

Multiple Sources
One of the difficulties we faced producing this comprehensive list was the many resources we used. We have found that some individuals may be listed with up to three different heights in three different sources. One of the books listed shows a person with two different heights in different chapters. To bring some order to this, we created trust levels for different sources. Published books typically rates more trusted than the Internet Movie Database which we rate more trusted than an individual's Web pages. In each individual's Biographical information page, all heights are listed but the Primary height is the most trusted.

Limits
Throughout Short Persons Support, we have been careful to avoid defining an arbitrary height as the boundary between short and moderate. People may feel short not because of some specific measure but because of their countries of origin, workplace environment, friends or other factors. We wanted Short Persons Support to be as inclusive as possible for anyone who feels different due to their short stature.

However, to keep the list of Short People meaningful, we had to choose a specific height so we decided to use one standard deviation. Men's heights and women's heights can plotted on a bell curve, also called a normal curve:

Most people's height are near the median or middle. The exact definition of Standard Deviation is outside the scope of this page but can still be used. For any population on the bell curve, ±1 Standard Deviation (the colored parts of the graphs above) covers the middle 68% of the population, and is a mathematically useful separation. People are included in the Short People list if they are shorted than -1 Standard Deviations, which is 5' 5½" for men and 5' ¾" for women.

Median heights have increased during the passed few generations, so what is short today may not have been short a hundred years ago. To account for this, we have used a slightly lower demarcation for people who earned their fame before the last century.