He Pingping, who is just 74.61cm tall (2ft 5.37in), posed on steps in London's Trafalgar Square with Russian Svetlana Pankratova, whose legs have been measured at 132cm (4ft 3.9in) - almost twice his height.

He Pingping, who was born with primordial dwarfism, was thinking as ever of his girlfriend back in Inner Mongolia.

He said through an interpreter: "I always miss her when I'm not with her."

The 20-year-old has been going out with the woman, who is of average height, for six months.

Clad in traditional oriental dress, He Pingping, who runs a restaurant, smiled and chuckled and studied his media questioners with keen interest, and enjoyed tapping an interviewer's microphone.

He is from Huade County in Wulanchabu, and at the time of his birth was no bigger than his father's palm.

He Pingping met Svetlana at the launch of the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book, which is published tomorrow.

Svetlana, from Volgograd, lives with her Russian boyfriend on the Costa del Sol in Spain, and is 1m 96cm tall (6ft 4in).

The 36-year-old said of He Pingping: "I heard he was going to be the shortest man, but I didn't realise he was going to be that small.
"He seems very happy, he smiles and laughs a lot."

Svetlana, who works in a real estate agency business in Spain, already has a boyfriend shorter than herself.

"I don't mind dating a shorter person, my boyfriend is 1m 85cm (6ft 1in)," she said.

She added that when she was growing up she did not realise that she had such long legs.

"I thought I was just tall," she said.

Now she is considering other careers with the profile her record is giving her.

"Maybe it all starts today, we'll have to see how it goes," she said.