Nubian Nose: Two Readings, One Consumer Label

What the label names, and what a ruler can separate

All three consumer guides read for this page use two features: the width of the base and the length of the bridge. Two of them add a third. The 2024 guide says the base is broad and the bridge is longer than a flat nose's bridge. The August 2026 guide says the bridge is long, the base is wide and the tip is slightly downturned. The October 2026 guide says the base is wide, the nostrils are broader and the bridge is longer, often sitting flatter against the face. The width and the bridge are stable across the three; the tip and the profile projection are not.

Only two of those features have standard landmarks. Nasal width is the distance from one ala to the other, the outer wall of the nostril on each side. Nasal height is the distance from the nasion, the point where the nasal bone meets the frontal bone between the eyes, down to the subnasale, where the nasal septum meets the upper lip. Both are skin-surface distances and both can be taken with a ruler or a caliper. Bridge projection and tip rotation are profile readings: they need a side view, and neither is part of the index below.

A caliper is the instrument in the two studies below; a ruler held level against the skin is the home equivalent. The two studies measured nasal height from nasion to subnasale, not from the bridge of the glasses to the tip. A reading taken from a different pair of points is a different measurement and should not be compared with their means.

The nasal index: one number behind the word broad

The nasal index is nasal width divided by nasal height, multiplied by 100. A nose 44 mm wide and 55 mm high has an index of about 80. The index is the measurement literature's way of putting noses of different absolute sizes on one scale, and it is the closest published quantity to the word broad. It is not a Nubian index: neither of the two studies below uses the label, and neither prints a category by that name.

The category bands have moved a little between papers. The 2019 study used three: leptorrhine below 69.9, mesorrhine from 70 to 84.9, and platyrrhine above 85. The 2025 study used five, splitting the narrow end at 54.9 and the broad end at 100. Both are printed below because the second one shows how much of the classification is a convention at the boundaries rather than a natural break. A nose at 84 and a nose at 86 get different names, while two noses at 84 and 85 do not look different.

The 2019 paper prints the three bands as leptorrhine below 69.9, mesorrhine 70–84.9 and platyrrhine above 85; the 2025 paper prints the five bands above. The two scales do not share a source for the cutoffs, which is why the table keeps both columns. The index is a ratio, so it says nothing about absolute width: a large nose and a small nose can share an index.

What two studies actually report

The first study measured 140 dental students in Kathmandu with a digital vernier caliper. Its mean nasal index was 81.3 with a standard deviation of 14.9, which falls in the mesorrhine band. The sex-specific means were 84.5 for men and 80.7 for women, and the paper reports mesorrhine as the most common type in the sample. The mean width and height were 44.0 mm and 54.8 mm; dividing those two group means gives about 80.3, slightly below the reported 81.3. The difference is expected: the study averaged each participant's index, while dividing two group means averages the ratio in a different order.

The second study measured 305 adults in Mysuru, South India, with the same kind of caliper. Its mean index was 71.3 for men and 71.1 for women, closer to the mesorrhine band's lower edge than the first study's mean. Yet leptorrhine was the most common category in both sexes, at 47.1 percent of men and 52.3 percent of women. A mean near a boundary and a majority on one side of it are not a contradiction: the distribution is wide, and the mean is pulled by the long upper tail. This is the clearest reason to read a category band as a sorting label rather than a description of the average nose.

The 2019 paper's width and height means are 44.0 mm and 54.8 mm; the 2025 paper's abstract prints width and height figures that do not agree with its own Table 4, so this page uses only the 2025 paper's index and category counts. Neither paper uses the word Nubian. The 2019 paper's male and female index means are both printed with their own standard deviations because the two samples differ in size; the female group is almost five times the male group, so the pooled mean sits closer to the female value.

How to take the two readings at home

Work in even light, facing a mirror, with the head level and the face relaxed. For nasal width, find the widest point of each ala and hold a ruler horizontally across both, without pressing into the skin. For nasal height, find the nasion between the eyes and the subnasale where the septum meets the upper lip, then measure straight down the midline. Take each reading twice, keep the average, and write down the landmarks you used. Divide the width by the height and multiply by 100 for the index.

The arithmetic is worth doing once, because it shows how much a reading can move the result. At the 2019 sample's dimensions, one extra millimetre of width moves the index by about 1.8 points, and one extra millimetre of height moves it by about 1.5 points in the other direction. The sample's standard deviation is 14.9, so a one-millimetre slip is a small part of the spread between people, but it is not zero. Two readings taken on different days are more useful than one reading taken twice in the same minute.

A photograph adds a scale problem. A frontal photo with a ruler in the frame can give width and height if the head is level and the camera is at the same distance for both; a photo without a scale cannot give millimetres at all. A profile photo is the only way to see bridge projection and tip direction, and even a profile photo depends on the camera being level with the face. The studies used a caliper, not a phone, so a home number should be read as an estimate made with a stated method.

What this means for you: write two numbers and the landmarks beside them. A width and a height can be checked; a label without them cannot.

Where the label stops and the index begins

A nose with an index of 90 is platyrrhine, and a guide might well call it a Nubian nose. A nose with an index of 80 is mesorrhine, and the same guide might also call it a Nubian nose, because the label's second feature is a long bridge rather than a high index. The label and the index are answering different questions. The index asks how wide the nose is relative to its height. The label asks whether the base looks wide and the bridge looks long in a photograph or in conversation.

That difference is why the two should not be exchanged. The index has no cutoff for Nubian, and the three guides print no cutoff for the width, the bridge or the tip. A word that three guides define with three slightly different sets of features is a description, not a diagnosis. It can still be useful: if two people mean the same two features when they use it, the word saves a sentence. It stops being useful when it is treated as a category with a boundary, because there is no published boundary to point to.

The index has its own limit. It collapses width and height into one ratio, so a wide, long nose and a narrower, shorter nose can land on the same number. At 44 mm wide and 55 mm high the index is 80; at 40 mm wide and 50 mm high it is also 80. The first is broader in millimetres; the second has the same proportion. A single index cannot tell those two shapes apart, which is exactly the information the label's two features were trying to carry.

What this means for you: use the label for the two features it names, and use the index for the one ratio it measures. Neither one is a substitute for the other, and neither one needs to be.

Five dated sources, sorted by publication day

The table records what each source publishes, in the order the pages were published. It mixes measurement studies and consumer guides on purpose: the label lives in the guides, while the only numbers live in the studies. The dates are the pages' own publication dates; the 2019 and 2025 journal dates are the dates printed by the publishers.

The two studies used different samples, different cities and different category scales, so their means are printed side by side, not averaged into one figure. The 2025 paper's abstract contains width and height figures that conflict with its own table; this page uses its index and category counts only. The three guides print no sample, no cutoff and no measurement error for the Nubian label, and their definitions differ on the tip and the profile. The word Nubian does not appear in either study.

What changed, what did not

What changed between 2019 and 2026 is the vocabulary, not the measurement. The 2019 study measured width, height and index, sorted the sample into three bands and named no shape beyond those bands. The 2025 study repeated the same kind of measurement with a five-band scale and a larger sample. The three consumer guides then gave the label a set of visual features: a wide base, a long bridge, a tip angle, a flatter profile. That is a change in description, not in the underlying quantities.

What did not change is the separation between the two literatures. Neither measurement study uses the label, and none of the three guides prints a measurement, a sample or an error term. A reader who wants a number has to take it from the studies and decide which of the label's features it covers. A reader who wants the label has to accept that its three definitions are not the same. The dated table above is the place where that difference is visible; the text does not need to pretend the sources agree.

The direction of travel is also informative. The later guides add detail to the tip and the profile, while the earlier one stays with the width and the bridge. The later measurement study adds bands rather than changing the formula. Neither move produces a shared definition. A later date is not by itself a tighter definition, and a larger sample is not by itself a label.

What this means for you: read the guides for the features and the studies for the numbers. The date tells you which version you are holding, not which one is the measurement.

What neither the label nor the index tells you

Neither one ranks a nose. The studies report means, standard deviations and category counts; they do not report which category is more attractive, and neither one was designed to answer that. The consumer guides describe shapes, but their descriptions are not ratings either. A category name and a preference are different kinds of statement, and this page does not turn one into the other.

Neither one is a health test. The nasal index is used in anthropology and in surgical planning, where it helps describe a population or compare a result with a baseline; it is not a diagnosis of breathing, allergy or sleep. A wide or narrow reading does not by itself explain airflow, and a label does not predict a medical outcome. The two studies measured external landmarks, not the airway inside.

Neither one is a statement about a person's family history. The two samples come from Kathmandu and Mysuru, and their means differ, which is exactly what a sample-specific mean is supposed to do; it does not transfer to another person as a norm. The guides use the label with population claims that this page does not repeat, because a shape description is not a genealogy. The measurement can describe a nose; it cannot name where the person came from.

What this means for you: read the two numbers as a description of one nose at one moment, and read the label as a word that needs the numbers beside it. Anything beyond that is a claim the sources do not support.

What to write down instead of a single name

If the label is useful to you, keep the two features and add the reading that makes them checkable. Write the nasal width in millimetres, the nasal height in millimetres and the index, then note whether the bridge looks flat or prominent in profile and whether the tip turns up, sits level or turns down. Those four lines describe more than the label does, and each one can be compared with a later reading or with a photograph taken the same way.

The order matters. Start with the two distances, because they are the only parts with standard landmarks. Then add the profile notes, because they depend on the camera and the light. A label can come last, after the numbers, when it has something to sit on. Used that way, the word is a shorthand for the four lines rather than a replacement for them.

What this means for you: a name is easiest to check when the numbers are already written down. The label does not have to disappear; it only has to stop carrying the whole description.

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