People come in all shapes and sizes, but with
more than 7 billion people on earth, there’s a lot of room for some exceptional sizes and
there are some real life giants alive to prove it. But just think how difficult daily life must
be for someone that big. Ready to hear about the lives of the largest
people on earth? Let’s get it on! Where better to start than with the world’s
tallest living man? Sultan Kosen is one of only 10 people in all
of human history that is taller than 8 foot tall - in fact, he’s so tall he was deemed
too tall to play basketball! He also holds the world record for largest
hands on a living person - in case you’re wondering, they’re 11.22 inches. He seemed to take a light-hearted outlook
on his height, saying how useful it was whenever he had to help his mom change a lightbulb,
but the truth is, it nearly killed him. Luckily, being named the tallest man alive
made him famous enough to get the life-saving, revolutionary gamma-knife surgery he needed
- the surgeons offered to operate free of charge on the tumour that was causing his
pituitary gland to continually release growth hormone, finally stopping his body at a height
of 8 foot 1. He has now traded in farming for an acting
career, and fulfilled his dream of getting married - so this tall tale has a happy ending. Bodybuilders are always intimidating, but
Oliver Richters a.k.a The Dutch Giant, takes that to a whole new level with his towering
7 foot 2 height. He’s the world’s tallest bodybuilder and
at 330 pounds, he really is an imposing figure. His size isn’t news to him though - he was
big even as a baby when doctors couldn’t fit him into the incubator as a newborn, and
he was already over 6 foot 5 at the age of 14. But at that time, he was slender and skinny. Then he started going to the gym and switched
to a strict diet of 6400 calories a day, including 450 grams of protein, and that’s how he
became what he is today. You would think he would be happy with his
size now - after all, he said he felt like a walking skeleton as a teenager, but he says
that there’s still room for improvement despite his impressive physique. The last place you want to come face to face
with a giant is in the wrestling ring - unfortunately for WWE wrestler’s, that’s where you’re
likely to meet Dalip Singh Rana, a.k.a The Great Khali. This Indian-born man was almost destined to
be a great wrestler - he towers over everyone at a ginormous 7 foot 3, and backs up his
height with a weight of 420 pounds. He’s so strong that back in the day before
he became a famous wrestler, when he was working as a labourer building roads and breaking
rocks, women in his village used to call on him to lift cattle over fences as an easy
way to move them to a different paddock. That’s definitely impressive, but he’s
come a long way since then. He’s moved into acting since he gained fame
in WWE, starring in Get Smart with Steve Carell and now being offered roles in big Bollywood
movies, so hopefully he’ll be able to buy a car he can comfortably fit in soon. To us comparatively short people, a double
bed being a problematic size isn’t something we think about, but Paul Sturgess has been
sleeping diagonally in his bed to try and fit all his life. He’s the UK’s tallest man and he’s over
7 foot 7, so it took someone finally making him a custom 8 foot bed in 2018 for him to
finally have a good night’s sleep on a piece of furniture that fits him. Being the UK’s tallest man isn’t Paul’s
only claim to fame though - he also might be the world’s tallest basketball player
- his size 18 shoes have graced the courts with the Harlem Globetrotters no less! As we’ve learnt though, keeping fit at that
height is no easy feat - he eats a shocking 7,000 calories a day! But at least he doesn’t have to worry about
the bed anymore. The tallest man in America has a pretty interesting
story to tell about how he got there. Igor Vovkovinskiy was born in Ukraine but
was brought to America at the age of 7 because his parents were worried about his height
- at that young age, he was already 5 foot 4. The Ukrainian doctors didn’t have the facilities
to operate on the tumour he had pressing against his pituitary gland that was causing the excessive
production of growth hormone that was making him so tall, and it took his mother writing
letters to doctors all over the world to find an answer to her son’s problem. Now, he’s over 7 foot 8 inches, making him
the tallest living man in the US, but it’s not all good. He suffers from a lot of pain and has already
had to undergo 25 surgeries on his left leg alone. Still, the tumour that was threatening his
life by causing his condition has been removed, so hopefully things will start going
his way. You obviously need a lot of skill in basketball,
but even without that, it must be helpful to be able to comfortably put both hands on
the basket while standing on the ground, like Robert Bobroczkyi can. The Romanian has dreams of joining the NBA,
and if he did, he would become one of the 3 tallest men to play in the league. But while his staggering 7 foot 7 height could
be an advantage, it doesn’t always work in his favour. He developed scoliosis which gives him constant
back pain and his height does make it very difficult to sustain his weight - as a 195
pound 17 year old, he was eating 4,500 calories a day to try and increase his weight by one
pound every month, and eating that much definitely isn’t easy when you can hardly sit on a
standard chair and your fork has to travel so far to reach your mouth. You probably weren’t expecting to see a
woman on this list, but you better prepare yourself to be impressed by Lindsay Hayward. This American is tall by anyone’s standards
- she’s 6 foot 9 and has been since she was 13. It’s probably not surprising being such
a tall girl meant she got bullied a lot, but it might have helped her later when she decided
she wanted to prove that nobody could mess with her and she became a wrestler. She got famous for picking up male wrestlers
and spinning them over her head before throwing them onto the floor, which is definitely an
unusual move for a woman. Since then though, she moved out of wrestling
and is trying to make it as an actress which is no easy feat for a woman of her height,
especially when photographers tend to photograph her from unflattering angles because they’re
so much shorter than her. The next place on this list goes to a height
of more than 13 feet 10 inches. Of course, that’s not possible for one person
- there are two of them. They’re the world’s tallest couple according
to the Guinness World Records. They’re both seriously tall in their own
right: Sun Mingming is 7 foot 9 inches and Xu Yan is 6 foot 2, and together they tower
over everyone. They met at the National Games of China, which
is not surprising because they’re both accomplished sport stars - him in basketball and her in
handball. They fell in love and got married in 2013,
which probably makes sense - it must be refreshing to find someone who understands how much of
a struggle just riding in a car or getting on a plane can be to someone as tall as they
are. Long legs on a woman are always eye-catching,
so you have to bet Ekaterina Lisina gets a lot of attention: she holds the Guinness World
record for the World’s Longest Legs - they’re a striking 52 inches long! She was bullied at school so she hopes this
will be an inspiration to girls lacking confidence, but she has no shortage of inspirational achievements. She’s been a very successful basketball
player, winning bronze with the Russian team at the 2008 Olympics. She has since given up basketball in favour
of a modelling career, and also holds the Guinness World Record Title for the World’s
Tallest Professional Model - that’s right, it’s not just her legs that are impressively
long, she’s a breathtaking 6 foot 8.77 inches tall! She’s a successful model now, which is genuinely
impressive for a woman who can’t find trousers that fit her and can hardly find feminine
shoes that fit her size 47 feet. I guess those long legs are irresistible to
fashion photographers. Earning a nickname like Thor is no easy feat,
but Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson almost seems destined for it. Aside from his 6 foot 9 inch height that forces
people to literally look up to him, he’s also impressively strong. After being forced to retire from basketball
due to a knee injury, he was encouraged to become a strongman and now has a whole treasure
trove of awards to prove that his 425 pound weight is mostly solid muscle. Aside from being the strongest man in Iceland
for several years running, he’s also won Europe’s strongest man 5 times and is the
third strongest man in the world. He definitely earned it, even just for having
to eat every 2 hours to maintain his weight. But if you’re wondering why you recognise
him even though you don’t follow this stuff, it’s because he became famous for playing
The Mountain in Game of Thrones - a fitting name for sure.
