Mile

A mile is a unit of distance (or, in physics terminology, length) currently defined as 5,280 feet, 1,760 yards, or 63,360 inches. Today, one mile (often called a statute mile) is equal to about 1,609 m, with one nautical mile being exactly 1,852 m. Nautical miles are used for nautical and aviation purposes. However, mile has also been used to describe other lengths -- see below for details.

Mile is abbreviated to mi. in the U.S., and "ml" and "m" in the UK.

The Original Mile

A unit of distance called a mile was first used by the Romans and originally denoted a distance of 1,000 (double) steps ("mille passuum" in Latin), which amounted, at approximately 0.75 m per (single) step, to 1,500 metres per mile.

Types of mile

In modern usage, various distances are referred to as a mile.

Various Statute Miles

• The international mile is the distance typically meant when the word mile is used without qualification. It is defined to be precisely 1,760 international yards (by definition, 0.9144 m each) and is therefore exactly 1,609.344 m (1.609344 km). It is used in the United States and the United Kingdom as part of the Imperial system of units. The international mile is equivalent to 8 furlongs, 80 chains or 5,280 international feet.
• The U.S. survey mile is equal to 5,280 U.S. survey feet, 6,336/3,937 km or approximately 1,609.347 m. One international mile is equal to 0.999 998 survey miles. The survey mile is used by the United States Public Land Survey System.
• The statute mile is a mile of 5,280 feet, without specifying which foot is used. The term is therefore ambiguous.
• The obsolete Scottish and Irish miles are longer than the English (nautical mile) by about a half.

Various Nautical Miles

• The international nautical mile is defined to be 1,852 m. It is used universally for aviation, naval and maritime purposes and originated from the geographical mile.
• The Collins English Dictionary defines a sea mile as 6000 feet (1828.8 m).

Other Miles

• In Norway and Sweden, a distance of 10 km is most commonly referred to as a mile or metric mile, see mil.
• In sports such as athletics and speedskating, the term metric mile is used to denote a distance of 1.5 km.
• The German mile was reckoned to be the 15th part of a degree (and thus about four nautical miles in length).
• The Danes, Swedes, and Hungarians had long miles, which were about a German mile and a half.
• The Dutch mile, was nearly the 19th part of a degree.
• The Polish mile was nearly equal to the Dutch mile.
• The Italian mile was a thousand paces of 5 Roman feet each (the Roman foot being one fifth of an inch less than the London foot).

One mile is 80 chains long. See Edmund Gunter.

See also

• League
• Imperial units
• U.S. customary units
• Ancient weights and measures
• Medieval weights and measures
• Fibonacci sequence application: convert to kilometers

Reference

'Of Divers Measures', inLaurence Echard, 1741, The Gazetteer's or Newsman's Interpreter, London: Ballard et al. (first published 1703)

External links

• NIST General Tables of Units of Measurement