Your facial width-to-height ratio: cheekbone width divided by the height from your upper lip to your eyelids. One of the few facial ratios with a real research literature behind it.
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Facial width-to-height ratio
Add a photo and this fills in.
Narrower below 1.8
Reference band 1.8 to 2.1
Wider 2.1 to 2.6
Cheekbone width
not yet px
Upper face height
not yet px
Typically 1.8 to 2.1 on this tool's anchors
Taking the measurement
1
Take a front-on photo
Square to the camera with a neutral expression. Smiling raises the cheeks and changes the measurement.
2
Choose the file
Measured in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
3
Read the ratio, not a rank
The figure describes a proportion. What it predicts is covered below, and it is narrower than most pages on this subject suggest.
Example
Cheekbone width, over the height from the eyelid line to the upper lip.
Drawn from the landmarks our own measurement reads off this photo, not
placed by hand. It is a generated face, not a real person, and nothing
here is a verdict about it.
Facial width-to-height ratio is your cheekbone width divided by the height from your upper lip to the top of your eyelids. It is a real variable in perception research, where it predicts how threatening a face reads. The popular claim that it measures masculinity did not survive meta-analysis.
How this is worked out
Cheekbone width
The bizygomatic width, measured across the widest point of the cheekbones from the detected face outline.
Upper face height
From the top of the upper lip to the highest point of the eyelids. This is the definition used in the research literature, and it is why the measurement stops at the eyes rather than the brow.
The ratio
Width divided by height. It has no units, so it is comparable between photos in a way that a raw measurement in pixels is not.
What each measurement is
Reference bands are this tool's own, chosen for the landmarks it uses.
Where research reports a figure it is given separately, with the source,
because the two are different claims. And each one says what actually
moves it, which for most facial measurements is the more useful half.
Facial width-to-height ratio
Formula
cheekbone width ÷ upper-face height (eyelid midpoint to upper lip)
Reference
1.8 to 2.1 on this tool's anchors
Research
published samples mostly fall between about 1.6 and 2.2, and the figure moves with which vertical anchor a study uses. Men measure higher than women by d = 0.11 across 10,853 people - a very small gap (Geniole et al., 2015)
A higher value means the cheekbone span is wide relative to the measured upper face in this photo.
What moves it Nothing to aim at here, and that is the useful answer rather than a dodge. The research links fWHR to how threatening a face reads, not to how attractive it is, so there is no attractiveness figure to work toward - and the bone does not move in an adult anyway. What changes the number is body fat sitting over the cheeks, which is worth knowing before anybody reads a change as progress.
Cheekbone width px
Formula
bizygomatic span, scaled to the photo
Upper face height px
Formula
highest eyelid point to the top of the upper lip
The literature uses more than one vertical anchor here, which is why fWHR figures from different tools are not comparable.
Facial width-to-height ratio is your cheekbone width divided by your upper face
height. This measures it from a photo.
It is one of the few community measurements that is genuinely a research
variable. It is also one where the popular version and the published version
have come apart, and that gap is worth the two minutes.
How it is measured here
Width is the bizygomatic distance, across the widest point of the
cheekbones.
Height runs from the top of your upper lip to the highest point of your
eyelids. That upper boundary surprises people, and it is one of the definitions
the literature uses. The original Carré and McCormick method used a mid-brow
anchor instead, and later papers used others.
That is why fWHR numbers are not comparable between tools, and it is worth
more than any single figure. This calculator compares against 1.8 to 2.1 on
its own anchors. Published samples across methods mostly land between 1.6 and
2.2. Neither is a target, and a number from a tool that will not say which
anchors it used tells you nothing at all.
What the research found
Two meta-analyses, and they point in different directions about different
claims.
Geniole and colleagues, PLOS ONE, 2015. They meta-analysed fWHR against
threat-related perception and behavior. It holds up as a cue people read: wider
faces tend to be perceived as more dominant or threatening. That is a finding
about observers, not about the person being observed.
Kramer, Evolution and Human Behavior, 2017. He meta-analysed the claim that
most popular writing on fWHR rests on, which is that it is a sexually dimorphic
trait, a marker of masculinity. Once skull samples were excluded, there was
little evidence of a sex difference in faces, with a small effect surviving
only in East Asian samples. His own conclusion was that there is no reason to
treat fWHR as universally sexually dimorphic, and that explanations built on
that assumption need rethinking.
So: fWHR is real, it is measured, and people do read something off it. The
specific idea that a wide face is a masculine face is the part that did not
survive.
That is the honest version, and it is more interesting than either boosting the
measurement or dismissing it. Our evidence page grades both papers
and explains why.
What moves it and what does not
The skull does not change in an adult. Bizygomatic width is bone.
Body fat changes how the cheeks photograph, which moves the measured ratio
without moving anything structural. That is worth knowing before reading a
change as progress: the body fat estimate is the figure
actually moving.
Expression and angle move it too. Smiling raises the cheeks. A raised chin
shortens the upper face in frame.
Where to take this next
The facial ratios calculator reports fWHR alongside
eleven others if you want the full set from one photo. The
jawline tool covers the lower face, which fWHR ignores
entirely, and the face shape detector uses the whole
outline rather than the upper half.
The community has long-running threads on what any of these measurements are
worth in practice, which is a better use of an evening than another calculator.
Facial width-to-height ratio: the width across your cheekbones divided by the height from your upper lip to the top of your eyelids. It is a measured variable used in social perception research.
How do you calculate facial width-to-height ratio?
Divide bizygomatic width by upper facial height. The height runs from the upper lip to the highest point of the eyelids, which is the definition the research uses and is why it stops at the eyes rather than the brow.
What does a high fWHR mean?
In perception studies, wider faces tend to be read as more threatening or dominant. That is a finding about how observers respond, not a statement about the person, and the effect is about perception rather than behavior.
Is a high fWHR more masculine?
This is the popular claim and it is the part that failed. Kramer meta-analysed the sexual dimorphism evidence in 2017 and found little sign of a sex difference in faces once skull samples were excluded, with a small effect surviving only in East Asian samples.
What is a good fWHR?
There is no single good value, and that is a real finding rather than a dodge: the research links fWHR to how threatening a face reads, not to how attractive it is. This tool compares against 1.8 to 2.1 on its own anchors. Compare your number only with the method shown here.
What is the average fWHR?
Published samples mostly report values between about 1.6 and 2.2. The average depends heavily on which vertical anchor a study uses: a brow-to-lip method gives a different number from an eyelid-based one, and that method-dependence is why figures quoted without a method are not worth much.
Does fWHR predict aggression?
The stronger finding is about how faces are perceived rather than how people behave. Geniole and colleagues meta-analysed fWHR against threat-related perception and behavior, and the perception side is where the evidence holds up best.
Can you change your fWHR?
The bone structure underneath it does not change in an adult. Body fat changes how the cheeks read in a photo, which moves the measured ratio without moving the skull.
Why did my fWHR change between photos?
Expression and angle. Smiling raises the cheeks, a raised chin shortens the upper face in frame, and a camera held off-square compresses one side. Take comparison photos the same way.
Is fWHR the same as face shape?
No. fWHR uses only the upper face. Face shape classification uses the full outline including the jaw, which is why our face shape detector can disagree with what you would guess from your fWHR.
Is my photo uploaded?
No. It is measured in your browser, and the site's content security policy blocks connections to any other domain.
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