Norwood 2
Recipient area: 20 cm²
Slight recession at the temples, the first stage most people notice. The hairline moves back a centimetre or two at the corners while the middle holds.
The standard way of describing hair loss, drawn from above, with the recipient area each stage actually covers. These are the same figures our graft calculator uses.
The Norwood scale describes how male pattern hair loss progresses, in seven stages. It is not a severity score and not a diagnosis — it is a shared vocabulary, so that a surgeon in İstanbul and a patient in Manchester mean the same thing by "Norwood 4". Women's loss follows a different pattern and uses the Ludwig scale instead.
It matters commercially, not just clinically. A graft estimate is area multiplied by target density, and the stage is what fixes the area. That is why every clinic asks for it, and why a quote given without one is a guess.
The temples recede first and deeper than the midline, which leaves the widow's peak. The crown opens as a separate area, the two merge late, and the horseshoe of donor hair at the back and sides survives every stage — that horseshoe is what a transplant is taken from.
Recipient area: 20 cm²
Slight recession at the temples, the first stage most people notice. The hairline moves back a centimetre or two at the corners while the middle holds.
Recipient area: 45 cm²
The recession deepens into a clear M shape. This is the first stage generally considered cosmetically significant, and the earliest most surgeons will operate.
Recipient area: 65 cm²
Norwood 3 at the front, plus a separate patch of thinning at the crown. The two areas are still clearly divided by hair between them.
Recipient area: 80 cm²
The frontal recession is deeper and the crown patch is larger. A band of hair still separates them, but it is beginning to thin.
Recipient area: 110 cm²
Both areas are larger and the band between them is noticeably thinner. From here the two regions are heading toward joining.
Recipient area: 145 cm²
The bridge between front and crown has gone. The bald area is now continuous across the top, with the horseshoe of donor hair intact at the sides and back.
Recipient area: 190 cm²
The most advanced stage: only the horseshoe remains, running from above the ears around the back of the head. That fringe is permanent — it is the donor area, and it is why a transplant is still possible at this stage, though with limited coverage.
Female pattern loss is diffuse and usually preserves the front hairline while the part widens toward the front. Because the loss is spread out, the donor area is often thinning too, which changes what surgery can achieve.
Recipient area: 55 cm²
Mild diffuse thinning. The part line widens slightly and is most visible under direct light; the front hairline is unchanged.
Recipient area: 90 cm²
The part is clearly wider and the scalp is visible through the hair across the top. The front hairline still holds.
Recipient area: 130 cm²
Extensive diffuse thinning across the top, with the scalp readily visible. The front hairline is usually still present, which is what distinguishes this from male pattern loss.
It says nothing about your donor area, and the donor is the ceiling on everything. Two people at Norwood 5 with the same recipient area can have completely different realistic outcomes, because one has 95 follicles per cm² at the back and the other has 60.
It also says nothing about where you are heading. A 24-year-old at Norwood 3 who is still losing hair needs a plan for Norwood 6, not for the head he has today. Treating the current stage as the whole picture is the most common planning failure in this industry.
Compare the diagrams above with a photo of your own scalp taken from above in good light. Pick the closest — you do not need to be exact, and a surgeon will assess it properly in person. If your temples have receded but the crown is untouched, you are likely Norwood 2 or 3; if there is a separate thinning patch at the crown as well, 3V or 4.
Usually, because the area to cover is larger — Norwood 2 is about 20 cm² and Norwood 7 about 190 cm². But it is not proportional, because the donor supply does not grow with the loss. At the higher stages the realistic plan is often lower density over a smaller priority area rather than covering everything thinly.
Not naturally. Medical treatment such as finasteride or minoxidil can slow or partly reverse recent thinning, which may make a stage look better, but the underlying progression does not reverse on its own. A transplant moves hair; it does not stop loss in the hair around it.
Because female pattern loss usually behaves differently: it thins diffusely across the top while the front hairline holds, rather than receding from the front. That also means the donor area at the back may itself be affected, which a male-pattern scale would not capture.