Dora The Explorer is one of the most beloved and widely-recognized cartoon characters in the history of children’s television. The Nickelodeon-owned character first came to the small screen back in the year 2000, courtesy of series co-creators Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes, and Eric Weiner. In the decades since, the original Dora The Explorer cartoon has spawned a number of sequel series’, spinoffs, books, video games, and even a live-action film. The sprawling franchise has amassed a multi-billion dollar sum from advertising revenue, box office sales, and merchandising opportunities. The IP was worth as much as $13 billion back in 2014 according to the LA Times, and has only continued raking in much more cash in the 10 years since.
Despite Dora’s extensive popularity, the educational cartoon character doesn’t offer a ton of personal information to viewers around the globe. Perhaps audiences have been so busy nudging the eponymous explorer toward the proper direction of hills and creeks that they forgot to stop and ask the basic questions of the character, such as “how old are you?” “What is your height?” and “Where on Earth are your parents, young lady?” Luckily, we’re here to uncover the truth behind all these questions and others, with a comprehensive look into Dora’s height, age, and more. Without any further preamble, let’s see what we can dig up regarding the canon stats for the illustrious explorer.
Dora’s Age Can Vary With Each Installment
Unlike other cartoon characters such as Bart Simpson or Stewie Griffin, Dora’s age is not permanently trapped in stasis. The adventurous young girl is said to be 7 years of age in the earliest episodes of Dora The Explorer, though, like many cartoon characters, she doesn’t exhibit signs of aging for years at a time. We know for a fact that Dora remains 7 years old throughout the first five seasons of her show’s initial run, because she celebrates her 8th birthday in the season five finale “Dora’s Big Birthday Adventure!” The episode, which celebrates the tenth anniversary of the show, aired on August 15, 2010. While there are no explicit references to the day’s date within the context of the episode, viewers can surmise that the episode is meant to take place in the middle of August, meaning Dora is a Leo.
In 2014, a sequel series titled Dora And Friends: Into The City premiered, which aged the titular protagonist up to 10 years old. This made perfect sense as the young people that the show was designed to reach in the first place had long since aged past Dora, considering the fact that she only celebrated one birthday over the course of fourteen years. Dora was once again aged up in the 2019 live-action film Dora and the Lost City of Gold, where she was played by Madame Web star Isabella Merced. Though Merced was roughly 19 or 20 when filming her scenes, her character is confirmed to be 16-years-old throughout most of the narrative.
How Old Would Dora Be In Real Life?
Depending on how you look at it, Dora would clock in somewhere between 21 and 31 if she were a real person exploring the jungles and forests of the world around us. If we are to take Dora’s initial age of 7 as canon when the series began in 2000, that would mean that Dora was born in August of 1993, and that her 31st birthday is just around the corner. Obviously, trying to calculate based on these figures brings up the question as to why it would take Dora over 10 years on the air before celebrating her 8th birthday, but that’s par for the course in the world of animated television.
If we calculate Dora’s real-life age based on the events of The Lost City of Gold, Dora would be close to celebrating her 21st birthday this Summer, meaning she still has tons of adventures and foreign locales left to explore. Despite this growth, the most recent iteration of the franchise, simply titled Dora, has reverted the character back to the age of 7, effectively shifting her birthday from 1993 to 2017. For all intents and purposes, it seems like a safe bet to consider that each installment of Dora will place her between the ages of 7 and 16, often closer to the former.
What Is Dora’s Height?
Dora’s height is another difficult stat to calculate, as her proportions are not necessarily animated to scale with each and every object she encounters. Based on context clues, it’s safe to guess that the eponymous adventurer is roughly 4 feet (1.22 meters) during the events of Dora The Explorer, but there’s nothing concrete within the show to demonstrate that figure. Her trusty sidekick Boots, who is a 5 and a half year old monkey, stands at just about shoulder height to Dora, while Swiper, the mischievous fox clocks in just an inch or two shy of her eye level. Obviously the medium of animation allows producers to overlook basic things like height and age when designing a character, though we can definitively say how tall Dora is during the events of The Lost City of Gold.
Thanks to public information about Dora actor Isabella Merced, we know for a fact that 16-year-old Dora stands at just 5′ 1 (1.55 m)” in the live-action film. While this says very little about the animated character, we can surmise that she is meant to be of average size during most of her adventures, especially because her height is rarely mentioned as an obstacle within the show.
With these questions answered, hopefully you and your children will have a better understanding of the Dora character. The series is primarily intended to serve as an educational show for children, so it’s worth taking a moment to examine basic information like height and age, even if it’s not especially relevant to the plot. Luckily, there are plenty of resources online to help us speculate and draw conclusions about Dora and company.
