You’ve seen the photos. Usually, they’re grainy, black-and-white shots of 1920s-era excavations where a group of men in flat caps are standing inside a massive ribcage. Or maybe it’s a TikTok video with a "spooky" filter showing a 100 foot tallest woman in the world casually stepping over a skyscraper.
It looks real enough to make you pause. Honestly, that’s the problem.
We live in an era where AI-generated images are getting scary good, and the "giant" niche is a goldmine for clickbait. But let’s get the big, obvious fact out of the way immediately: there has never been a 100 foot tallest woman in the world. If there were, she’d be roughly the height of a 10-story building. Physics, biology, and the sheer force of gravity have a lot to say about why that’s impossible.
The real tallest women in history (who actually existed)
If we want to talk about real human giants, we have to look at medical records, not Pinterest boards. The "100-foot" claim is a myth, but the true stories are arguably more interesting because these women actually had to navigate a world built for people half their size.
The reigning champion of height, verified by Guinness World Records, was Zeng Jinlian. She was born in China in 1964 and, by the time she passed away in 1982 at just 17 years old, she stood 8 feet, 1 inch tall (246.3 cm).
That is massive.
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Imagine standing next to her; your head would likely barely reach her elbow. She is the only woman in documented history to reach over 8 feet. Her growth started when she was just four months old, and by age four, she was already over 5 feet tall. She outgrew her mother before she even started kindergarten.
Then there’s Trijntje Keever from the 17th century. Her height is a bit harder to verify since she lived 400 years ago, but records from the Netherlands suggest she was about 8 feet, 4 inches. People used to pay money just to look at her at carnivals, which was a common, if tragic, way for exceptionally tall people to make a living back then.
Current record holders you can actually follow on Instagram
Right now, the title of the tallest living woman belongs to Rumeysa Gelgi from Türkiye. She stands at 7 feet, 0.7 inches.
- She has Weaver Syndrome, a rare genetic condition.
- She uses her platform as a web developer and advocate to talk about body positivity.
- She holds other records too, like the largest hands on a living woman.
Why a 100 foot woman is a biological impossibility
Okay, let’s talk science for a second. If a woman actually grew to 100 feet, she wouldn't just be "tall"—she would literally collapse.
Biologists talk about something called the Square-Cube Law. Basically, if you double an object's height, you triple its surface area but quadruple its weight (roughly speaking). By the time you get to 100 feet, a human body would weigh hundreds of tons.
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Human bones are made of calcium and collagen. They’re strong, but they aren't steel. At 100 feet, the femur (thigh bone) would shatter under the weight of the torso the moment the person tried to stand up.
Plus, there’s the heart. To pump blood all the way from the feet up to a brain 100 feet in the air, you’d need a heart the size of a car and blood pressure so high it would probably burst your arteries.
It’s just not happening.
Where did the 100 foot tallest woman in the world rumors start?
If it's impossible, why is the internet obsessed with it?
- Old Hoaxes: Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, "giant" skeletons were a staple of yellow journalism. It was the original "fake news."
- Forced Perspective: A lot of the "proof" photos you see use a trick where the person is much closer to the camera than the background, making them look like a titan.
- AI and Photoshop: Nowadays, someone can prompt Midjourney to create "a giant woman walking through a village in 1850" and it looks indistinguishable from a real vintage photograph to the untrained eye.
People want to believe in the extraordinary. There’s something primal and fascinating about giants. It’s why we have myths about Nephilim or Paul Bunyan. But when you see a headline about a 100 foot tallest woman in the world, just know it’s purely for the "likes."
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The reality of being "The Tallest"
Life isn't a fairy tale for people who are exceptionally tall. For women like Rumeysa Gelgi or the late Sandy Allen (who was 7'7"), the world is a constant obstacle course.
Think about the small things. Doorways. Airplane seats. Shoes—Zeng Jinlian had feet that were 14 inches long. You can't just walk into a Foot Locker and buy those. Most real-life "giants" suffer from severe health issues like scoliosis, heart strain, and joint pain because the human frame isn't meant to be that large.
It's less about being a superhero and more about incredible resilience in a world that wasn't built for you.
What to do the next time you see a "Giant" post
The internet is full of "tall" tales, literally. Here’s how to stay sharp:
- Check the source: If it’s from a random Facebook page with no links to a medical journal or Guinness World Records, it’s probably fake.
- Look at the hands: In AI-generated images of giants, the fingers often look "melty" or there are too many of them.
- Compare to the environment: If the person is 100 feet tall but their footsteps aren't leaving massive craters in the dirt or crushing cars, the physics don't add up.
If you're genuinely interested in human height, stick to the verified stories of women like Zeng Jinlian or Rumeysa Gelgi. Their lives were—and are—extraordinary enough without needing to add an extra 92 feet of fiction.