Inches to US Survey Miles (in to mi (US))

1 inch equals 0.00001578279672 US survey miles (rounded).

1 inch = 0.00001578279672 US survey miles

How to convert inches to US survey miles

To convert inches to US survey miles, multiply the number of inches by 0.00001578279672. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply US survey miles by 63,360.12672 (rounded).

US survey miles = inches × 0.00001578279672

Example: 10 inches = 0.0001578279672 US survey miles.

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

US Survey Mile (mi (US))

US land surveyHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

5,280 US survey feet (about 1,609.347 m). Slightly longer than the international mile, used in US land surveys until 2022.

Because it is built from 5,280 survey feet, this mile inherits the survey foot's tiny excess and comes to about 1,609.347 m, against exactly 1,609.344 m for the international mile. The gap is under 1/8 inch, or 3.2 mm, per mile, and one international mile equals 0.999998 survey miles. In US law the formal statute mile was the survey mile, though everyday usage treats the two as the same.

Over a single trip the difference vanishes, but State Plane Coordinate Systems can stretch across hundreds of miles, where a few millimetres per mile accumulate into something a surveyor must account for. For that reason surveyors kept the survey mile long after the international foot took over elsewhere. In October 2019 the National Geodetic Survey and NIST announced that the survey foot and mile would be retired from 1 January 2023, and NIST says the unit now survives only for historic and legacy data. Maps and deeds written before then still use it.

1 US survey mile = 1,609.347219 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Mile; NIST: U.S. survey foot

Related conversions

See all length units.