Dairy cattle spend most of the winter time indoors. Appropriate housing facilities-especially resting areas-are important to their welfare. As the selection for high milk production was accompanied by an increase in cows’ size, it is important for farmers to take into account cows’ dimensions when designing housing equipment in order to allow their adequate movements/positioning. The aim of this study was to investigate the links between specific characteristics of resting areas (e.g. size), cows dimensions and skin damages. A total of 131 farms (55 deep-bedded systems; 76 cubicle systems), were visited, resulting in 4254 cows on which height and width were measured and skin damages were recorded. Cows median height was 143 cm (1st-3rd quartile:143 - 147cm) and cows median length between point of shoulder and pin bone was 160 cm (1st-3rd quartile:155-164cm). Cows housed in deep-bedded systems had less hairless patches, lesions and swellings on the hindlegs, quarter and forelegs than cows in cubicles (P<0.05).In cubicles, we found evidences of the importance of taking cows dimensions into cubicles designs in order to avoid skin damages. For instance, more cows had hairless patches on their hindlegs when the ratio cubicle length/cow length was below 1.6. Such results shall help design ergonomic housing facilities