Dragon Sizes

These dragons have been drawn without wings, and each riding dragon is roughly the size of the largest dragon in the category, or at least an average size for the dragon in that category.

Small Dragons

A 'small dragon' is a dragon whose size does not exceed 18 feet. These dragons are too small to ride, but can make excellent companions, either as hunting dragons, conversational partners or magical familiars.

These dragons can include Pernese Fire-Lizards, a variety of Hunting Dragons from the How To Train Your Dragon books, Pennykettle Dragons from the Last Dragon Chronicles, Wyverns from Dragonsdale, Dwarf Dragons from Dragonology, and various other dragons.

This category is for dragons smaller than horses, so while a Monstrous Nightmare may be terrifying to behold with a few meters in its wingspan, and certainly not a 'tiny' dragon, it is still classed as 'small'.

Other dragons which may not fit into the correct size-bracket for the category of 'small dragons' but certainly are not 'riding dragons' include Gargouilles from the Dragonology books.

Small Riding Dragons

[18-30ft]

By no means are these 'small' dragons- they can grow up to 30ft. They are purely considered 'small' in comparison to even larger creatures. A large horse can be 9ft long, so the smallest dragon in this category is 18ft long from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail; that is to say, as long as a horse with an added tail, as half of a reptile's body length tends to be tail.

Dragons in this category include the Welsh Green, Swedish Shortsnout and Chinese Fireball dragons from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and the Marsupial Dragon from Dragonology. Riding dragons from the HTTYD books are also included in this bracket, the only one with a stated length in the series is the Deadly Shadow (triple-header) which is 29ft long, and therefore one of the largest small riding dragons. From looking at the illustrations, it is safe to assume that most other riding dragons, from the Windwalker to the Marsh Tiger, are in this bracket too.

Medium Riding Dragons

[30-40ft]

It's hard to look at a creature and say “yes, that's a medium size”, but this is a small size bracket to cover dragons which are huge, larger than your average riding dragon, but not so gigantic that you need to stop and stare in awe.

This in-between dragon group only covered dragons between 30ft and 40ft in length, a niche zone occupied by the Hebredian Black and Norwegian Ridgeback dragons from Harry Potter, Green Pernese dragons, and the Knucker and Lindworm from Dragonology.

Driving-dragons from How to Train Your Dragon, such as the Driller Dragon or Sabre-Toothed Driver Dragon are in this category.

Large Riding Dragons

[40-70ft]

These dragons are huge. It seems impossible that any ecosystem can support them. They include the largest dragons known to Dragonology (Chinese Lung, Amphithere, Tibetan Lung, Korean Yong, Frost Dragon, European Dragon, the Hydra and the Wyvern) as well as the largest known dragons in the Wizarding World (Atipodian Opaleye, Romanian Longhorn, Hungarian Horntail and Ukrainian Ironbelly). Blue, Brown, Bronze and Gold Pernese dragons are in this group.

Middleweight dragons from Temeraire fit into this size bracket, including the Yellow Reaper and the Longwing.

Huge Riding Dragons

[70ft-∞]

Impossibly huge and glorious beasts. The largest animal on Earth is the Blue Whale, which is 82ft in length. The Celestial Dragon from the Temeraire series is 90ft in length. This category is nearly exclusively populated with heavyweight Temeraire breeds, and the ancient and rare sea dragons from How to Train Your Dragon: the Doomfang, the Leviathorgan, Darkbreathers, Woden's Nightmares, Thor's Thunderers, and the infamous Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus.

This category can also be applied to elderly dragons which have a continious growth-rate, such as the Colddrakes and Firedrakes of Middle Earth (Ancalagon was described as the size of a mountain) and the dragons of Alagaesia, which never stop growing.

Sea-serpents, for those who consider them to be dragons, also belong in this category.

God Dragons

Do not even try to contemplate the size of Jormungandr.