Centimeters to Zhang (Chinese) (cm to zhang)

1 centimeter equals 0.003 zhang (Chinese) exactly.

1 centimeter = 0.003 zhang (Chinese)

How to convert centimeters to zhang (Chinese)

To convert centimeters to zhang (Chinese), multiply the number of centimeters by 0.003. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply zhang (Chinese) by 333.3333333 (rounded).

zhang (Chinese) = centimeters × 0.003

Example: 10 centimeters = 0.03 zhang (Chinese).

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

Zhang (Chinese) (zhang)

ChineseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Ten chi, 10/3 m (about 3.33 m) in the modern market system.

Ten chi made one zhang, so the unit was always a measure of the human scale of buildings and cloth rather than of personal reach. It turns up in Chinese architecture as a way to describe the width of a bay and the height of walls and pillars. Since the chi itself changed from dynasty to dynasty, the zhang changed in step with it and had no independent standard.

Republican law fixed it twice. In 1915 the Republic of China set it at about 3.2 m, and in 1930 the figure was revised to exactly 10/3 m, about 3.33 m, which is the value used here. Mainland China uses it rarely today, and everyday speech tends toward meters. The Japanese jo is built the same way from ten shaku, giving about 3.03 m, which shows how a shared structure produced different lengths.

1 zhang (Chinese) = 3.333333333 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Zhang (unit); Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement

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