Cubits to Miles (cbt to mi)

1 cubit equals 0.0002840909091 miles (rounded).

1 cubit = 0.0002840909091 miles

How to convert cubits to miles

To convert cubits to miles, multiply the number of cubits by 0.0002840909091. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply miles by 3,520.

miles = cubits × 0.0002840909091

Example: 10 cubits = 0.002840909091 miles.

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

About these units

Cubit (cbt)

Medieval EnglishHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

Traditionally the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. The common English cubit is taken as 18 inches (45.72 cm); ancient cubits ranged from about 44 to 53 cm.

From the Latin cubitum, meaning elbow, the cubit was the forearm measured from the elbow to the fingertips. English use tied it to roughly 18 inches, or 45.72 cm. Such a hand-and-arm measure is the same idea that produced the ell, which Wikipedia describes as originally a cubit.

No single value ever governed it. Wikipedia lists most ancient cubits between 44.4 and 52.92 cm, from the Roman cubitus of about 444 mm, which Vitruvius set at one and a half Roman feet, to the Egyptian royal cubit near 523 to 529 mm. Medieval Islamic cubits ranged far wider still.

The English ell eventually settled at 45 inches, one and a quarter yards, while the cubit faded from commerce. A trace survives in hedgelaying, where a forearm of about 18 inches sets the spacing of stakes. The figure used here is the 18 inch English cubit.

1 cubit = 0.4572 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cubit; Wikipedia: Ell

Mile (mi)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

5,280 feet or 1,760 yards, exactly 1,609.344 meters. This is the statute (international) mile used on US and UK roads.

A thousand paces gave the mile its name. It descends from the Latin mille passus, the Roman mile, by way of Old English mil and Middle English myle. For centuries after Rome, miles of many lengths coexisted; a sixteenth-century Mercator map, for example, shows small, medium and large Flemish miles on a single scale bar. The English statute mile was fixed by an Act of Parliament under Elizabeth I in 1593, which declared that a mile contains eight furlongs, or 5,280 feet.

The 1959 international yard and pound agreement made that mile exactly 1,609.344 meters. A slightly longer US survey mile, about 1,609.347 meters, lingered in American land surveys and was slated for retirement from 1 January 2023. Today the mile is the road unit of the United Kingdom, the United States, Liberia and Myanmar, along with several territories such as the Bahamas, Belize, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. In Canada it survives chiefly in rail transport and horse racing.

1 mile = 1,609.344 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Mile; Wikipedia: Foot (unit); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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