Inches to Cun (Chinese) (in to cun)

1 inch equals 0.762 cun (Chinese) exactly.

1 inch = 0.762 cun (Chinese)

How to convert inches to cun (Chinese)

To convert inches to cun (Chinese), multiply the number of inches by 0.762. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply cun (Chinese) by 1.312335958 (rounded).

cun (Chinese) = inches × 0.762

Example: 10 inches = 7.62 cun (Chinese).

About these units

Inch (in)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

1/12 of a foot. Defined as exactly 25.4 millimeters since 1959, when the US and Commonwealth countries agreed a common international inch.

Latin uncia, meaning one-twelfth, is the root of both inch and ounce, and it passed into Old English as ynce. Roman measurers divided their foot into twelve unciae, and the English inch kept that twelfth. After 1066 an inch was reckoned as three barleycorns, and a 1324 statute attributed to Edward II spelled out the definition as three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise. For centuries the inch was simply a twelfth of a foot, or a thirty-sixth of a yard, and the US and UK each kept their own copy of the standard yard.

Those copies differed slightly until the 1959 international agreement fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, which made the inch exactly 25.4 millimeters. The US adopted it in 1959 and the UK ratified it in 1963, effective 1964. Today the inch is still the customary unit in the United States and Canada, and the UK keeps it on road signs. Worldwide it also names display diagonals, wheel rims, tire codes and pipe sizes.

1 inch = 0.0254 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Inch; Wikipedia: Yard; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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)

Related conversions

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