Anthropometry literally means "measurement of humans." In physical anthropology it refers to one aspect of human variation: The different body sizes and proportions of individuals belonging to different populations. In modern American usage, at least, it specifically refers to measurement of living individuals, not the bones of deceased individuals (osteometry or craniometry).

The first main practical use of anthropometrics was in criminalistics, in a system of identifying criminals designed by Alphonse Bertillion in 1883.

Anthropometric studies are conducted for numerous different purposes. Academic anthropologists investigate the evolutionary significance of differences in body proportion between populations whose ancestors lived in different environmental settings. Human populations exhibit similar climatic variation patterns to other large-bodied mammals, following Bergmann's rule, which states that individuals in cold climates will tend to be larger than ones in warm climates, and Allen's Rule, which states that individuals in cold climates will tend to have shorter, stubbier limbs than those in warm climates. On a microevolutionary level, anthropologists use anthropometric variation to reconstruct small-scale population history. For instance, John Relethford's studies of early twentieth-century anthropometric data from Ireland show that the geographical patterning of body proportions still exhibits traces of the invasions by the English and Norse centuries ago. Anthropometry may also be used to distinguish body types such as endomorphic and mesomorphic.

Outside academia, scientists working for private companies and government agencies conduct anthropometric studies to determine what range of sizes clothing and other items need to be manufactured in.

Historically, the term anthropometry was applied to human measurement more generally, including the study of skeletons, and particularly skulls, of earlier populations (see craniometry). Measurements were compared and used to create racial categories. 1930s Germany was known to use anthropometry to classify different humans and determine their ethnic background.

See also: Human height, Human weight

In art Yves Klein termed anthropometries his performance paintings where he covered nude women with paint, and used their bodies as paintbrushes.