How many hair follicles does an average person have on their head?

Head hair is a type of hair that is grown on the head (sometimes referring directly to the scalp). This is the most noticeable of all human hair, which can grow longer than on most mammals and is more dense than most hair found elsewhere on the body. The average human head (an average scalp measures approximately 120 square inches or 770 cm²) has about 100,000 hair follicles. Each follicle can grow about 20 individual hairs in a person's lifetime. Average hair loss is around 100 strands a day. The absence of head hair is termed alopecia, commonly known as baldness.

Anthropologists speculate that the functional significance of long head hair may be adornment. Long lustrous hair may be a visible marker for a healthy individual. With good nutrition, waist length hair—approximately 1 meter or 39 inches long—would take around 48 months, or about 4 years, to grow.

Hair density is related to both race and hair color. Caucasians have the highest hair density, with an average growth rate, while Asians have the lowest density but fastest growing hair, and Africans have medium density and slowest growing hair.