Li (unit)

The li (里, lǐ) is a traditional Chinese unit of distance, which has varied considerably over time but now has a standardized length of 500 meters or half a kilometer (approx. 1640 feet). A modern li consists of 1,500 Chinese "feet" or chi and, in the past, was often translated as a "mile." Since the li has generally been only about a third as long as the mile, translating the character as "Chinese mile" or simply "li" is much less likely to produce confusion or error.

In practice however, as late as the 1940s, a li did not represent a fixed measure. It could longer or shorter depending on the effort required to cover the distance.

The character 里 combines the characters for "field" (田, tián) and "earth" (土, tǔ), since it was considered to be about the length of a single village. In Chinese, li is sometimes prefaced by the character shi (市, shì) to distinguish it from the kilometer proper or gongli (公里, gōnglǐ).

There is also another li (Traditional: 釐, Simplified: 厘, lí) that indicates a unit of length 1/1000 of a chi, but it is used much less commonly. This li is used in the People's Republic of China as the equivalent of the centi- prefix in metric units, thus limi (厘米, límǐ) for centimeter. The tonal difference makes it distinguishable to speakers of Chinese, but unless specifically noted otherwise, any reference to li will always refer to the longer traditional unit and not to either the shorter unit or the kilometer. This traditional unit, in terms of historical usage and distance proportion, can be considered the East Asian counterpart to the Western league unit.

Changing values

See also: Chinese units

Like most traditional Chinese measurements, the li is reputed to have been established by the Yellow Emperor at the founding of the Chinese civilization around 2600 BCE and standardized by Yu the Great of the Xia Dynasty six hundred years later. Although the value varied from state to state during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, historians give a general value to the li of 405 meters prior to the Qin Dynasty imposition of its standard in the 3rd century BCE.

The basic Chinese traditional unit of distance was the chi. As its value changed over time, so did the li’s. In addition, the number of chi per li was sometimes altered. To add further complexity, under the Qin Dynasty, the li was set at 360 "paces" (步, bù), but the number of chi per bu was subsequently changed from 6 to 5, shortening the li by 1/6. Thus the Qin li of about 576 meters became with other changes the Han li, which was standardized at 415.8 meters.

In his volume on civil engineering in China, Joseph Needham makes some calculations under the assumption that during the "Qin and early Han Dynasty" the li was 0.4972 km (0.309 mi), but for others he assumes—citing a Hisotry of Chinese Metrology by Wu Chhêng-Lo (1957)—that the Qin and Western Han used the 0.309 mile, while the Eastern Han used a 0.258 mile li. John Hill proposes that more recent and reliable determinations show that during the Early and Later Han dynasties the value of the Chinese li was 0.4158 km (0.2584 miles).

Evolving values of the li

Dynasty	Period	SI length
Xia	2100 - 1600 BCE	405 m
Western Zhou	1045 - 771 BCE	358 m
Eastern Zhou	770 - 250 BCE	416 m
Qin	221 -206 BCE	576 m
Han	205 BCE - 220 CE	416 m
Tang	618 - 907 CE	323 m
Qing	1644 - 1911 CE	537 m - 645 m
PRC	1949 - 1984 CE	?
PRC	1984 - present	500 m

Under the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), the li was approximately 323 meters.

In the late Manchu or Qing Dynasty, the number of chi was increased from 1,500 per li to 1,800. This had a value of 2115 feet or 644.6 meters. In addition, the Qing added a longer unit called the tu, which was equal to 150 li (96.7 km).

These changes were undone by the Republic of China of Chiang Kai-shek, who adopted the metric system in 1928; but the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong reinstituted the traditional units as a measure of anti-imperialism and cultural pride.

In 1984, the PRC officially adopted the metric system, but found a place within it for the traditional units, which were restandardized to metric values. In the People's Republic, a li is now exactly half a kilometer, or 500 meters. The Republic of China (also known as Taiwan) does not use the li at all, but only the gongli or kilometer.

However, although "li" still refers to the traditional unit and one must say "gongli" to mean kilometer, with the conversion to metric, the kilometer has become the basic unit of long distances even within the PRC. This is in counter-distinction to weight, where the traditional jin (0.5 kg) is still frequently preferred in daily use over the metric kilogram or gongjin.

Cultural use

As one might expect for the equivalent of "mile," li appears in many Chinese sayings, locations, and proverbs as an indicator of great distances or the exotic:

• The Chinese name for the Great Wall is "the Ten Thousand Li Wall" (萬里長城, Wàn Lǐ Chángchéng). As in Greek, the number "ten thousand" is used figuratively in Chinese to mean any "immeasurable" value, and this title did not provide a literal distance. Ironically, the actual length of the final Great Wall is roughly 13,000 modern li – or 3,000 li longer than its name's proverbially "immeasurable" length.

• The Chinese proverb commonly rendered "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (as used in Tao Te Ching chapter 64, by Laozi) originally discussed travelling one thousand li (千里之行，始于足下, "Qiān lǐ zhī háng, shǐ yú zú xià").

• The greatest horses of Chinese history are all referred to as "thousand li horses" (千里馬, qiān lǐ mǎ), since they could supposedly travel a thousand li in a single day. Examples include Red Hare and Hua Liu.

Other cultures

The long Chinese li was the source of the ri in Korea (리, 里, ri) and Japan (where it is still written 里).

Although the Chinese units had been unofficially used since the Zhou Dynasty, it was the values of the Tang Dynasty that were adopted. The ri of earlier era in Japan was thus true to Chinese length, corresponding 6 chō (ca. 500–600 m), but somehow elongated later to denote the distance a person can walk in a fixed time. Thus there had been various ri, of 36, 40, and 48 chō. Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period defined 36 chō be 1 ri officially, allowing other variants, and the last definition of Japanese government in 1891 adopted this. Exact figure of Japanese ri was at that time fixed on the metric system, 43200/11 ≈ 3927.27 metres or about 2.44 miles. Thus one must be careful how many chō one ri corresponds to. See Kujūkuri Beach (99-ri beach) for a case.

In South Korea, however, the ri currently in use is a unit taken from the Han li. It has a value of approximately 392.72 metres, being exactly one tenth of Japanese ri. In Aegukga, the national anthem of South Korea, three thousand ri is mentioned per Korean peninsula, where 3,000 ri is roughly 1,200 km, which is approximately the longitudal span of Korean peninsula.

See also

• League (unit) for a general discussion of league-style units
• Chinese traditional units
• Japanese traditional units
• Korean traditional units

References

• Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
• Hulsewé, A. F. P. 1961. "Han measures." T'oung pao Archives, Vol. XLIX, Livre 3, pp. 206–207.
• Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.

External links

• Chinese Imperial Distance converter from Convert Me