A History of Measuring Distance

It is not very difficult to understand the difference between kilometers and miles . If you want to go from miles to kilometers, you multiply by 1.6 to get a very accurate answer . One mile has 1760 yards in it or 1,609.344 meters . What few people know is the long history behind how kilometers and miles as we know them today came into being.

A mile is presently the official unit of length in many countries of the world such as the United States . The metric system, though, is becoming much more popular, as is is much easier to use and convert . Many countries around the world have been pressuring for the metric system to become the universal form of measurement. A good portion of the world has conformed, but a few countries, such as the United States, have resisted and kept the traditional Imperial system .

The mile was first developed by the Romans, but originally hade a much different definition than what we know it as today . Its origin came from a roughly measured one thousand paces, which equated to five thousand Roman feet . Though it has lost popularity this unit is still used at times and is titled the Roman Mile. It measures 1,480 meters in length .

It was not until the 13th century that our current mile, which has a length of 5280 feet was defined . It took some time for the standardized mile to catch on . Many countries serviced their own separate systems for quite some time . It took a long time, but the mile did eventualy become the standard unit of measurement . It was not until 1824, when Britain passed the Act of Weights & Measurement, which applied to all its colonies, that the standardized mile became widely accepted . Still, many countries still held to their own unique mile .

As you can likely imagine, there has been a lot of confusion over the years regarding distance . It was not until the year 1959 that the current unified length was finally agreed upon and established as what we currently know as the International Mile . The international mile can be broken down into international feet which are 0.3048 m. Up until this time; Miles were measured in feet, as defined by the English speaking countries .

In today's society, the metric kilometer has been adopted by most countries as the standard measurement of long distances . There are some insistant countries, however, such as the US & The UK, that still keep miles on all their road signs .

The funny thing is that the UK has officially switched to the metric system, but decided not to change their road signs . People there have a long history with the mile as their unit of measurement and do not want to change . There are still no indications of plans to change this .

Kilometers are a unit of measurement in the Metric system . Throughout the centuries many systems were termed metric. It was not until the 1960s that the metric system was standardized into what we know it as today . It is quite interesting that the metric system was standardize very shortly after the imperial measurement system, but gained in popularity much faster .

The purpose of the metric system is to make measuring and converting much easier . Every unit in the system is divisible by ten, which makes it an easier system to learn and to teach .

It can be fun to remember the history of the units of measurement we now use every day . It is so easy to forget the past, and not realize the steps it took to establish our modern society. It is good to reflect .