How Old & Tall Is Dora The Explorer? (2024)

Dora The Explorer is one of Nickelodeon’s best-loved shows, but the question of "how tall and how old is Dora" isn't easy to answer. Co-created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes, and Eric Weiner, the long-running series began back in 2000 when the original Dora The Explorer cartoon started airing on Nickelodeon. Since then, it’s spawned video games and books, a number of toy lines and several international versions alongside a sequel series and a live-action movie that have seen young Dora age somewhat.

As with many animated characters in long-running shows, Dora doesn't seem to age and grow like normal kids. This is most famously seen with the mysterious ages of The Simpsons' kids who have never gotten older, taller, or moved to the next grade in school despite having been on television for more than three decades. While Dora's growth is slow, there has been some progression over the years and different versions of Dora which makes it trickier to determine just how old and how tall Dora is.

How Old Is Dora?

Dora's Age Changes In The Sequel Series

In the original Dora The Explorer, Dora is initially seven years old and later celebrates her eighth birthday in season 5. The show was originally created to help teach young children Spanish in the classrooms so it makes sense that the character of Dora was made to be close in act to the kids who would be watching it. She is shown to be a fun-loving and exciting youngster with a passion for learning.

The sequel series Dora And Friends: Into The City! – which aired for two seasons between 2014 and 2017 – saw the adventurous young protagonist age up ever so slightly to 10 years old. While the original adventure saw Dora exploring the jungle, this older Dora now lives in the big city and which makes for a new set of adventures to go on with her friends. While she still has a youthful spirit, she is also more of a leader now.

How Tall Is Dora?

Dora's Height Is Never Explicitly Stated

It’s not officially known how tall the cartoon versions of Dora are in Dora The Explorer and Dora And Friends. However, a rather funny meme started circulating in late 2019 based on a seemingly inaccurate Google search result that claimed Dora was either 5'1'' or 5'2''. It only added to the debate and the uncertainty about how tall the character is.

That could be true of the 10-year-old Dora that appeared in Dora And Friends, but it would have made the seven-year-old version from the Nick Jr. series unusually tall for her age and suggests that taller characters around her are even more implausibly tall. It’s more likely the original incarnation of Dora was a more average height of around four feet tall and had grown a few more inches by the time she was ten in Dora And Friends.

Did The Live Action Dora Movie Change Her Height & Age?

She's Aged Up To A Teenager In The Film

While Dora and the Lost City of Gold may not have been a huge hit for the franchise, it did have some fun playing around with the concepts of the character, including how old Dora is. While young Dora at the beginning of the movie may be closer to the character from the animated shows as a 7-year-old child, the movie then jumps to follow her on adventures as a teenager at the age of 16 years old.

Dora is also seen to be much taller than she is in the cartoons. One easy way to compare this is through the height of Boots the monkey in relation to Dora. While the cartoons see Boots standing about chest level next to Dora, the movie shows him barely taller than her knees. It is harder to judge her height compared to the height of her cousin Deigo, as he has aged up as well, with Dora even pointing out how tall he has gotten.

To get a more accurate assessment of Dora’s height in the movie, actor Isabela Mercer, who plays teenage Dora in the movie and will be playing Hawgirl in James Gunn's upcoming Superman, stands at 5′ 1″. Of further help, young Dora actor Madelyn Miranda is 4′ 8″.

Dora The Explorer

PG

Director

James Bobin

Release Date

August 9, 2019

Cast

Eugenio Derbez , Jeffrey Wahlberg , Michael Pena , Isabela Moner , Adriana Barraza , Eva Longoria , Madeleine Madden , Q'orianka Kilcher , Christopher Kirby , Benicio Del Toro , Temuera Morrison

Runtime

102minutes