Feet to Roman Feet (ft to pes)

1 foot equals 1.02972973 Roman feet (rounded).

1 foot = 1.02972973 Roman feet

How to convert feet to Roman feet

To convert feet to Roman feet, multiply the number of feet by 1.02972973. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply Roman feet by 0.9711286089 (rounded).

Roman feet = feet × 1.02972973

Example: 10 feet = 10.2972973 Roman feet.

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

About these units

Foot (ft)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

12 inches. Defined as exactly 0.3048 meters. Still the standard unit for height, altitude in aviation and room dimensions in the US and UK.

Human anatomy supplied the idea: an adult foot is roughly 15 percent of body height. Ancient cultures turned that into standards, but not the same one. The Greek pous was about 302 mm, the standard Roman pes about 295.7 mm, and a Harappan foot of about 335 mm has been reported from the Indus Valley. Historically, a foot fell somewhere between about 250 and 335 mm. Charlemagne tried to standardize units around 790 with little lasting success, and in 1593 English law fixed the statute mile at 5,280 feet.

The modern foot dates from the 1959 International Yard and Pound Agreement, which defined the yard as exactly 0.9144 meter and so the foot as exactly 0.3048 meter; the UK adopted it on 1 January 1964. The US survey foot, defined in 1893 as 1200/3937 meter, was deprecated on 31 December 2022. Feet remain in everyday use for height and rooms in the US, and ISO shipping containers are defined in them. Aviation altitudes use them too: flight level 330 means 33,000 feet.

1 foot = 0.3048 meters (exactly).

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

Roman Foot (pes)

Ancient RomanHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

The basic Roman unit of length, about 29.6 cm (11.65 in). Surviving rulers vary by a few millimeters, so values differ slightly between sources.

Latin pes, the word for the human foot, named the basic length of Roman building, surveying and road making. The accepted modern value is about 296 mm, and the figure used here is 296 mm. Surviving evidence does not agree to the millimeter. In 1639 the English scholar John Greaves compared monuments and objects in Rome and got 295 mm from a statue of Cossutius, 296 mm from the tomb of Statilius, and 301 mm from a congius vessel of Vespasian. William Smith later gave about 295.9 mm.

The foot could be divided into 12 unciae, or inches, or into 16 digiti, or fingers, a split borrowed from the Greek pous. Larger units were built from it, including the cubit at one and a half feet, the pace at five feet and the mile at 5,000 feet. A longer provincial foot, the pes Drusianus, measured roughly 333 to 335 mm. The English foot, about 304.8 mm, is close to the Roman one but about 3 percent longer.

1 Roman foot = 0.296 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Pes (unit); Wikipedia: Ancient Roman units of measurement

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