I’ve been to The Nethlands many times and almost all the ethnic Dutch are taller than I am. I’m six feet tall and it is the first thing I notice. Even adolescent girls are approaching six feet tall. Crazy.
Then I go to Paris and the first thing I notice is that I’m taller than everyone on the subway car by almost a head height, and usually two. Sometimes three, even. Except for the French-African guy probably from Senegal a few rows over who is almost as tall as I am when he’s sitting down. A pretty tall Frenchman is five foot six, but up in Normandy the people seem lots taller. France and Japan seem to share the same average height.
England is full of tall people too.
In the book “John M. Browning, American Gunmaker” there is a photo of him taken in Liege, Belgium. He is standing with the managers of Fabrique Nationale.
Browning looks to be about 6 o 7 inches taller than them.
My dad was 6’5”. He was stationed in Iceland at Keflavik. He had been stationed in England, Germany, Japan and Korea also. Said that the Icelanders were the tallest guys he had seen. Commented that there were some men in the far north of Japan who were bigger than their average.