Furlongs to Centimeters (fur to cm)

1 furlong equals 20,116.8 centimeters exactly.

1 furlong = 20,116.8 centimeters

How to convert furlongs to centimeters

To convert furlongs to centimeters, multiply the number of furlongs by 20,116.8. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 0.00004970969538 (rounded).

centimeters = furlongs × 20,116.8

Example: 10 furlongs = 201,168 centimeters.

About these units

Furlong (fur)

US & ImperialTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

220 yards, one eighth of a mile (201.168 m). Still used to measure horse races in the UK, US and Ireland.

Furrow plus long gives furlong, from the Old English furh and lang. A field strip one furlong in length was how far a team of oxen was thought to plough before pausing. The furlong has also long been treated as the equivalent of the Roman stadium, an ancient unit of similar size.

Its size was fixed against other units: 40 rods, 10 chains, 220 yards or 660 feet, which equals exactly 201.168 m. An acre was defined as one furlong long by one chain wide, so ten acres make a square furlong. When England shortened the foot in the late thirteenth century the furlong grew from 600 old feet to 660 new ones, keeping its length in rods. Eight furlongs make a mile. Official use ended in the UK under the Weights and Measures Act 1985, but racecourses, farms and canal signs still count in furlongs.

1 furlong = 201.168 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Furlong; Wikipedia: Chain (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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