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Food & Drink

How long is a sesame seed?

A sesame seed is about 2 mm long.

What is measured: single seed, longest dimension

Sesame seed (2 mm) drawn to scale beside a raindrop (2 mm) and a grain of rice (7 mm)
Drawn to scale, from left to right: Sesame seed (2 mm), Raindrop (2 mm) and Grain of rice (7 mm).

Compare

How big is that, really?

  • About the width of a raindrop
  • About 3 would fit end to end along a grain of rice
  • About 4× the width of a grain of sand
  • About 17× the width of a human egg cell
  • About 29× the width of a human hair

Learn

Facts about Sesame seed

Sesame is one of the oldest oilseed crops cultivated by humans, with archaeological evidence of its use thousands of years ago.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Sesame”; USDA FoodData Central, “Seeds, sesame seeds, whole, dried”

Food & Drink

NameSizeCompared with Sesame seed
Poppy seed1 mm0.5×
Sesame seed2 mmthis page
Mustard seed2 mmsame size
Lentil4 mm (0.16 in)2×
Rice grain7 mm (0.28 in)3.5×
Pea8 mm (0.31 in)4×
Chickpea8 mm (0.31 in)4×
Coffee bean9 mm (0.35 in)4.5×
Corn kernel1.2 cm (0.47 in)6×
Blueberry1.5 cm (0.59 in)7.5×

Test your sense of scale

Which is bigger: Sesame seed or Poppy seed?

Topics

More sizes like this