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It was a meeting of epic proportions as the world's shortest and tallest men shook hands for the very first time, Mirror Online reports.

Sultan Kösen, 31, towers almost two metres above Chandra Dangi, 75, - who is about as tall as six stacked cans of beans.

Tiny Chandra, from Nepal, measures up at just 1ft 7in, making him the smallest man ever recorded - Turkish giant Sultan, on the other hand, is an impressive 8ft 3in.

The unlikely - or likely - pairing plan to stay in touch after their first ever meeting.

Sultan said: "I hope from now on we become really good friends and do more things together.

"I'm inviting Chandra to Turkey - hopefully he will come."

The pair travelled across the globe to meet each other at St Thomas' Hospital, London, this morning, to mark Guinness World Records Day and the 60th anniversary of their Records Book.

Part time farmer Sultan, from Turkey, became the world's tallest living man in 2009, beating Xi Shu, of China, who measured 7ft 8.95in.

He also has the largest hands of a living person, each of his gigantic plates measuring 11.22in from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger.

His shoe size is a huge 25.

Chandra, on the other hand, is the shortest man ever recorded, measuring 21.5in with a shoe size of just two.

Chandra lives in Reemkholi, an isolated village in the Dang district of Nepal, 540km southwest of the capital Kathmandu.

His height beat a benchmark set by Gul Mohammed, (from New Delhi, India, 1957-1997) who measured 22.5 in.