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How Big Is a Hydrogen Atom?

A hydrogen atom is about 106 pm across. That is about 16.1 billion times smaller than the average man. The simplest atom: one proton and one electron.

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How big is a hydrogen atom compared to the average man?

A hydrogen atom is about 16.1 billion times smaller than the average man. The average man is 16.1 billion× the size of a hydrogen atom: about 16.1 billion hydrogen atoms stacked up would match it. By volume, about 101 octillion (1 × 10²⁹) hydrogen atoms would fit inside the average man.

Hydrogen Atom size facts

A hydrogen atom is about 0.1 nanometers across.
Its nucleus is about 100,000 times smaller than the whole atom.

How does a hydrogen atom compare to other things?

A hydrogen atom next to 25 things of similar size, plus some everyday references:

Thing	Size	Compared to Hydrogen atom
Sun	865,000 miles (1,393,000 km) across	13.1 quintillion× bigger
Earth	7,920 miles (12,740 km) across	120 quadrillion× bigger
Mount Everest	5.5 miles (8.849 km)	83.5 trillion× bigger
Eiffel Tower	1,083 ft (330 m)	3.11 trillion× bigger
School bus	40 ft (12.2 m) long	115 billion× bigger
Average man (world)	5 ft 7 in (171 cm)	16.1 billion× bigger
Average woman (world)	5 ft 3 in (159 cm)	15 billion× bigger
Tennis ball	2.6 in (6.7 cm) across	632 million× bigger
Wolf spider	2.4 in (6 cm) long	566 million× bigger
Bee hummingbird	2.2 in (5.5 cm) long	519 million× bigger
Golf ball	1.7 in (4.27 cm) across	403 million× bigger
US quarter	0.96 in (2.43 cm) across	229 million× bigger
Honeybee	0.59 in (1.5 cm) long	142 million× bigger
Ladybug	0.28 in (7 mm) long	66 million× bigger
Grain of rice	0.26 in (6.5 mm) long	61.3 million× bigger
Ant	0.16 in (4 mm) long	37.7 million× bigger
Flea	0.098 in (2.5 mm) long	23.6 million× bigger
Mustard seed	0.059 in (1.5 mm) across	14.2 million× bigger
Grain of sand	0.02 in (500 µm) long	4.72 million× bigger
Dust mite	0.012 in (300 µm) long	2.83 million× bigger
Human hair (width)	70 µm across	660,000× bigger
Red blood cell	7.5 µm across	70,800× bigger
E. coli bacterium	2 µm long	18,900× bigger
Virus	100 nm across	943× bigger
DNA double helix (width)	2 nm wide	18.9× bigger

Where do these numbers come from?

Sizes are typical adult or reported values, rounded for readability. Read how we measure and compare sizes.