Height has been studied in human genetics since the late 1800s. We review what we have learned about the genetic architecture of this trait from the resemblance between relatives and from genetic marker data. All empirical evidence points towards height being highly polygenic, with many loci contributing to variation in the population and most effect sizes appear to be small. Nevertheless, combining new genetic and genomic technologies with phenotypic measures on height on large samples facilitates new answers to old questions, including the basis of assortative mating in humans, estimation of non-additive genetic variation and partitioning between-cohort phenotypic differences into genetic and non-genetic underlying causes.