Chi (Chinese) to Kilometers (chi to km)
1 chi (Chinese) equals 0.0003333333333 kilometers (rounded).
How to convert chi (Chinese) to kilometers
To convert chi (Chinese) to kilometers, multiply the number of chi (Chinese) by 0.0003333333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 3,000.
kilometers = chi (Chinese) × 0.0003333333333
Example: 10 chi (Chinese) = 0.003333333333 kilometers.
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
Kilometer (km)
1,000 meters. The standard unit for road distances in most countries.
A name for 1,000 meters took a while to settle. In 1793 France's National Convention made the metre the sole French unit of length, and the first proposed name for the thousand-metre multiple was millaire. Everyday French usage then leaned on the myriametre, 10,000 meters, well into the 1800s. The Netherlands adopted the kilometre in 1817, under the local name mijl, and made it the only official unit of that size in 1867. In 1935 the CIPM dropped the myria- prefix, which left the kilometre as the standard unit for road-scale distances.
Kilo- is the SI prefix for a thousand, and the kilometre is now the preferred unit for land distances in most of the world, with the United States, the United Kingdom and Liberia among those that still use the mile. One kilometre is about 0.621 mile. The main span of Lisbon's 25 de Abril Bridge, at 1.013 km, gives a sense of the scale. Even its pronunciation has been argued over: in 1970 Australia's Metric Conversion Board made stress on the first syllable official, although Prime Minister Gough Whitlam argued for stress on the second. Military slang in several countries calls it a klick.
1 kilometer = 1,000 meters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Kilometre; Wikipedia: Metric prefix; BIPM: history of the metre
Related conversions
- Kilometers to chi (Chinese) (reverse)
- Chi (Chinese) to meters
- Chi (Chinese) to centimeters
- Chi (Chinese) to millimeters
- Chi (Chinese) to inches
- Chi (Chinese) to feet
- Chi (Chinese) to yards
- Chi (Chinese) to miles
- Meters to kilometers
- Centimeters to kilometers
- Millimeters to kilometers
- Inches to kilometers
- Feet to kilometers
- Yards to kilometers
- Miles to kilometers
- Micrometers to kilometers
- Nanometers to kilometers
- Nautical miles to kilometers
- Pixels (CSS) to kilometers
- Light-years to kilometers
See all length units.