Chi (Chinese) to Millimeters (chi to mm)

1 chi (Chinese) equals 333.3333333 millimeters (rounded).

1 chi (Chinese) = 333.3333333 millimeters

How to convert chi (Chinese) to millimeters

To convert chi (Chinese) to millimeters, multiply the number of chi (Chinese) by 333.3333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply millimeters by 0.003.

millimeters = chi (Chinese) × 333.3333333

Example: 10 chi (Chinese) = 3,333.333333 millimeters.

About these units

Chi (Chinese) (chi)

ChineseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

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

Millimeter (mm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a meter. Used in engineering, manufacturing and rainfall measurement.

Carl Friedrich Gauss put the millimeter at the base of his 1832 proposal for absolute units, pairing it with the milligram and the second, although the centimeter-based CGS system later won out among scientists. The name combines the metric prefix milli-, from the Latin for one thousand, with the meter. Since 1983 a millimeter has been tied to the speed of light: it is the distance light covers in 1/299,792,458,000 of a second.

Millimeters are the language of fine mechanical work. Standard rulers are divided into them, digital calipers commonly read to 0.01 mm, and mechanical pencil leads come in 0.5 and 0.7 mm. Copy paper is about 0.1 mm thick, and a thin hair, at 0.02 to 0.04 mm across, is close to the smallest thing the naked eye can see. A wave with a frequency of 300 GHz has a wavelength of 1 mm. An inch is exactly 25.4 mm. One trap for readers in the United States is that mil there traditionally means a thousandth of an inch, not a millimeter.

1 millimeter = 0.001 meters (exactly).

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

Related conversions

See all length units.