Chi (Chinese) to Centimeters (chi to cm)
1 chi (Chinese) equals 33.33333333 centimeters (rounded).
How to convert chi (Chinese) to centimeters
To convert chi (Chinese) to centimeters, multiply the number of chi (Chinese) by 33.33333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 0.03.
centimeters = chi (Chinese) × 33.33333333
Example: 10 chi (Chinese) = 333.3333333 centimeters.
About these units
Chi (Chinese) (chi)
The Chinese foot, one third of a meter in the modern market system. Ancient chi were much shorter, around 23 cm in the Han dynasty.
Span of the hand between thumb tip and forefinger tip is the origin usually given for the chi, which appeared in the Shang dynasty roughly three thousand years ago. Its size drifted for centuries. Surviving rulers and bronze standards suggest about 23 cm under the Qin and Han, and tables list values between roughly 17 and 20 cm for the Shang and Western Zhou. By the Qing, figures between about 31 and 36 cm were in use depending on trade and region.
A British report of 1864 shows how messy the later situation was: engineers' public works used about 32.3 cm, surveyors about 30.6 cm, and Guangzhou merchants about 37 cm. Republican China fixed the unit against the meter, and the figure used here is the modern market chi of exactly one third of a meter, about 33.3 cm. Ten cun make one chi and ten chi make one zhang. Hong Kong's chek is longer at 0.371475 m, and Taiwan follows the Japanese shaku.
1 chi (Chinese) = 0.3333333333 meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Chi (unit); Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement
Centimeter (cm)
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
Related conversions
- Centimeters to chi (Chinese) (reverse)
- Chi (Chinese) to meters
- Chi (Chinese) to kilometers
- Chi (Chinese) to millimeters
- Chi (Chinese) to inches
- Chi (Chinese) to feet
- Chi (Chinese) to yards
- Chi (Chinese) to miles
- Meters to centimeters
- Kilometers to centimeters
- Millimeters to centimeters
- Inches to centimeters
- Feet to centimeters
- Yards to centimeters
- Miles to centimeters
- Micrometers to centimeters
- Nanometers to centimeters
- Nautical miles to centimeters
- Pixels (CSS) to centimeters
- Light-years to centimeters
See all length units.