american english - How to express someone's height in metric


If someone is 169cm tall, what is the most common way of saying their height in metres and centimetres in American/Australian/British English?


I'm not interested in converting metres (meters) and centimetres (centimeters) into feet and inches, which would be “five foot six” (5'6"), I know how to say and write that. I'm asking about the metric system, which of the following is most commonly used in speech? Or which form do you feel is most natural?


169cm tall



  1. “I'm a hundred and sixty-nine centimetres tall.”

  2. “I'm one hundred and sixty-nine centimetres tall.”

  3. “I'm a hundred sixty-nine centimetres tall.”

  4. “I'm a/one hundred 'n' sixty-nine.”

  5. “I'm one metre and sixty-nine centimetres tall.”

  6. “I'm one metre and sixty-nine tall.”

  7. “I'm one metre sixty-nine.”

  8. “I'm a metre and sixty-nine centimetres tall.”

  9. “I'm a metre and sixty-nine.”

  10. “I'm one point sixty-nine.”


How would an American/British/Australian represent this in writing? Should I place a space between the number and the unit: e.g. ‘169 cm’. With or without a full stop/period: e.g, ‘169 cm.’ or ‘169cm’?


(a) 169cm; 169cm.; 169 cm.
(b) 1.69m; 1.69m.; 1.69 m.
(c) 1m.69; 1m. 69
(d) 1m.69cm; 1m. 69cm


Could you please add where you're from, if you're in the US (and which state), Australia/New Zealand, the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland) or Ireland. These are the regions I'm most interested in. Thank you!


Addendum
A user in the comment section observed:



I am (honestly) missing the (real) point of your question



The reason why I'm asking is that the average person in Italy would say: "I'm one metre and sixty-nine", and you'd think it would be the same elsewhere. But while I was helping a young Italian student with their English homework, I saw their exercise book expressed height only in centimetres. I thought this was rather odd, not wrong, just odd. I know that Americans express people's weight in pounds whereas the British stick to the imperial system of stones and ounces; while the rest of Europe (to the best of my knowledge) use kilos and grams.


I wanted to be certain whether all Americans, Australians and British express metric height in the same way, (i.e. in centimetres) or if there are regional differences.


P.S. Although I always mention to private students that Americans and the British still prefer the imperial system for people's weight and height, I cannot expect a ten-year-old Italian child to know their height in feet and in inches, and why should they? I cannot expect them to tell me the height of the Eiffel Tower in feet (1,063 ft) or miles (0.186 mi).




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