History is filled with stories of giants, from Goliath in the Bible to the giants of Patagonia, which Magellan and other explorers reported finding in the 1500s. Most of these accounts are nothing more than myths and legends, but there have been verified cases of human gigantism that blur the line between fact and fantasy. Let’s take a look at giants throughout history.

The 1562 map of the Americas by Spanish mapmaker Diego Gutierrez was the most accurate map of the new world at the time. The map was engraved by the Dutch engraver Heronimus. While the map had embellishments, such as mermaids and giants, the depiction of giants in South America was based on reports by Mellin and his crew in Patagonia in 1520, which were later confirmed by other explorers.

The name Patagonia comes from "tierra de pagones," or "land of the giants." Human body sizes can vary vastly, as seen in the example of Chihuahuas and Irish Wolfhounds being the same species with a 25-times difference in weight. The shortest person, Asan Esmail Gad, is 6524 cm tall and weighs 6.5 kg, while the tallest person, Sultan Coen, is 251 cm tall and weighs 146 kg, making him 23 times heavier than Asan. While prehistoric human ancestors were generally shorter than modern humans, the Grasesan people, who lived in modern-day Bosnia and Croatia, were an average of 2 m tall.

While there have been stories of individual giants throughout history, the stories of entire races of giants seem to be just that—stories—with the exception of the Patagonian Giants.