Largest Bird Wingspans
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Largest Bird WingspansThe wandering albatross (3.63 m) and great white pelican (3.6 m) lead by the narrowest of margins, with the southern royal albatross (3.5 m) close behind - the three widest-winged birds alive separated by barely 13 centimetres. The list splits neatly by lifestyle: ocean-gliding albatrosses and water-associated pelicans dominate the very top, while the soaring land birds - Andean condor (3.3 m), marabou stork (3.2 m) and California condor (3.05 m) - form the next tier, using their broad wings to ride thermals rather than cross oceans. The trumpeter swan (2.8 m) closes the list. The clustering shows that a 3-metre-plus wingspan is the practical ceiling for powered flight, achieved only by birds that spend their lives soaring or gliding to offset the cost of such enormous wings.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia - Largest Living Flying Birds by Wingspan
- Coverage
- 8 entities · 8 observations
- Measure
- Maximum Wingspan (m)
- Last updated
- 12 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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