Inches to Rods (in to rd)

1 inch equals 0.005050505051 rods (rounded).

1 inch = 0.005050505051 rods

How to convert inches to rods

To convert inches to rods, multiply the number of inches by 0.005050505051. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply rods by 198.

rods = inches × 0.005050505051

Example: 10 inches = 0.05050505051 rods.

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

Rod (rd)

US & ImperialTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

16.5 feet or 5.5 yards (5.0292 m), also called a pole or perch. A quarter of a chain; a basic unit of English land measurement.

Three names, rod, pole and perch, all describe the same stick. Perch comes from the Roman pertica, a ten-foot measuring pole of about 2.96 m, while rod and pole name the physical staff that farmers and surveyors carried. A statute from around the thirteenth or fourteenth century defined the perch as five and a half ells. In the thirteenth century English perches ranged from 18 to 24 feet, and a parliamentary report of 1820 still found lengths between 16.5 and 25 feet in local use.

The version that won out is 16.5 feet, or 5.5 yards, exactly 5.0292 m, which is the figure used here. It is a quarter of a chain, 40 to a furlong and 320 to a mile, and 160 square rods make an acre. Ireland kept a longer perch of 21 feet. The rod faded from legal use in the UK with metrication from 1965, but allotments are still measured in square poles, canoeists count portages in rods, and pipeline easements and US property descriptions still use it.

1 rod = 5.0292 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Rod (unit); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8 (length conversion factors)

Related conversions

See all length units.