Centimeters to Greek Feet (cm to pous)

1 centimeter equals 0.03125 Greek feet exactly.

1 centimeter = 0.03125 Greek feet

How to convert centimeters to Greek feet

To convert centimeters to Greek feet, multiply the number of centimeters by 0.03125. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply Greek feet by 32.

Greek feet = centimeters × 0.03125

Example: 10 centimeters = 0.3125 Greek feet.

Approximate value. Standards for the Greek foot (Olympic) varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Centimeter (cm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One hundredth of a meter. Used for body measurements, clothing and everyday objects.

Scientists, rather than shopkeepers, gave the centimeter its place. In 1832 Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed a system of absolute units built on length, mass and time, choosing the millimeter, milligram and second. In 1873 a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose members included James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), recommended the centimeter, gram and second instead. That CGS system dominated physics for decades, until the metre-kilogram-second system replaced it in the mid-twentieth century and led to SI.

CGS units proved awkward for rooms and buildings, which run to hundreds of centimeters, but the centimeter itself never went away. It is still the everyday unit for height, clothing and small objects, and it appears in map scales and rainfall reports. An adult fingernail is roughly one centimeter wide, and a milliliter is defined as exactly one cubic centimeter. An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. The CGS system itself survives mainly in theoretical physics and astrophysics, where Gaussian units are still common.

1 centimeter = 0.01 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units; Wikipedia: Centimetre; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Greek Foot (Olympic) (pous)

Ancient GreekHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

One 600th of the Olympic stadion, about 32.0 cm. Greek feet differed by city; the Attic foot was nearer 29.6 cm and the Aeginetan about 33.3 cm.

Greek pous simply means foot, and the plural is podes. Every city-state kept its own foot, so the word never named a single length. Aegina used a foot of about 333 mm, Athens one of about 296 mm, and a general-purpose table gives 308.2 mm. The value used here, roughly 32.0 cm, is the Olympic foot, which is derived by dividing a stadion of about 192 m by 600.

That makes the Olympic foot a reconstruction and not a measured object, and it moves with the stadion figure chosen. Scholars have also proposed stadia near 157 m, 185 m, 196 m and 209 m, implying feet from about 26 to 35 cm. Within a Greek system the foot divided into 16 daktyloi, or fingers, and 100 feet made a plethron, a little over 30 m in the standard table. A foot of about 32 cm is close to the modern English foot of 30.48 cm, only a little longer.

1 Greek foot (Olympic) = 0.32 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ancient Greek units of measurement; Wikipedia: Stadion (unit)

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