Translations of Encyclopedia about Mathematics

Length Measurements

The basic unit of length measurement is the metre. If use standard prefixes, the most common would be the millimetre (mm), centimetre (cm), the decimetre (dm) and the kilometre (km).

In the metric decimal system, the size of all measurement units are exactly set in some ratio to the metre, to simplify computation between the various units:

1 m = 0.001 km 1 km = 1000 m
1 m = 10 dm 1 dm = 0.1 m
1 m = 100 cm 1 cm = 0.01 m
1 m = 1000 mm 1 mm = 0.001

In some countries, such as the US or Great Britain, another system of units is still in use: inch (in), feet (ft), yards (yd), fathoms (fm), chain (ch), furlong (fur), mile (mi) and the nautical mile (n mi).

Length measurements are converted between each other using defined multiples, such as

inch (in) . 2.54 cm
cm . 0.394 in
foot (ft) . 0.305 m
m . 3.281 ft
yard (yd) . 0.914 m
m . 1.094 yd
fathom (fm) . 1.83 m
m . 0.547 fm
chain (ch) . 10.108 m
m . 0.0497 ch
furlong (fur) . 201.17 m
m . 0.005 fur
mile (mi) . 1.609 km
km . 0.621 mi
nautical mile (n mi) . 1.852 km
km . 0.54 n mi

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