A tape measure. Shutterstock

Height varies a lot around the world — and some countries come far behind.

Using medical data, INSIDER calculated average height figures for the 25 shortest countries.

Scroll down to see the nations with the shortest people on earth.

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25-year-old Junrey Balawing from the Philippines was awarded the title of world's smallest living man in September 2015. He is just 59.9cm (1 foot 11.58 inches) tall.

Although he is the most extreme example, he is part of a broader scientific phenomenon: Filipinos are among the shortest people on earth.

INSIDER compiled a ranking of average height data from a medical database run by NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, a project linked to Imperial College London.

It lists separate figures for male and female height in each country — we took an average of these two figures to give a rough idea of how tall the average person is in the country, and also listed the separate male and female figures.

Scroll down to see the 25 countries at the bottom.