Cun (Chinese) to Centimeters (cun to cm)

1 cun (Chinese) equals 3.333333333 centimeters (rounded).

1 cun (Chinese) = 3.333333333 centimeters

How to convert cun (Chinese) to centimeters

To convert cun (Chinese) to centimeters, multiply the number of cun (Chinese) by 3.333333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 0.3.

centimeters = cun (Chinese) × 3.333333333

Example: 10 cun (Chinese) = 33.33333333 centimeters.

About these units

Cun (Chinese) (cun)

ChineseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

The Chinese inch, 1/30 m (about 3.33 cm) in the modern market system. Also used in acupuncture, where a 'body cun' is proportional to the patient.

Hand anatomy gave the cun its role. The traditional definition is the width of a person's thumb at the knuckle, and the unit is commonly translated as the Chinese inch. That human scale is the reason acupuncture still uses a body cun, which is proportional to the patient and is not a fixed number of millimeters. Two forefingers side by side are counted as 1.5 cun, and four fingers together as 3 cun.

As a measure of ordinary objects, the cun is one tenth of a chi and ten times a fen. Under the modern market system it equals 10/3 centimeters, roughly 3.33 cm. Hong Kong kept a British-influenced standard in which the cun is about 3.715 cm, and Japan's related sun is about 3.03 cm, so the same character covers several different sizes in different places. The phrase chi cun, literally foot and inch, also became the everyday Chinese word for dimensions.

1 cun (Chinese) = 0.03333333333 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cun (unit); Wikipedia: Chi (unit)

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

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