That's because your conditioned to do so. If you grow up with cm as your default height measurement it's just as natural as your 4 foot 6 or whatever. 180cm i can easily visualise, it's not that either is inherently better (although you know in your heart the metric system is superior 😉)
Yeah, the adult range is roughly 150cm for a tiny woman, up to 200cm for a towering man.
170cm is pretty average for a woman. 180cm is pretty average for a man.