Jō to Kilometers (jō to km)

1 jō equals 0.00303030303 kilometers (rounded).

1 jō = 0.00303030303 kilometers

How to convert jō to kilometers

To convert jō to kilometers, multiply the number of jō by 0.00303030303. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 330.

kilometers = jō × 0.00303030303

Example: 10 jō = 0.0303030303 kilometers.

About these units

Jō (jō)

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Ten shaku, exactly 100/33 meter (about 3.03 m).

Jo, written with the character for a tall person or elder, is the largest of the everyday shaku multiples, standing at ten shaku. Do not confuse it with the other jo, the counter for tatami mats, which describes floor area rather than length.

With the shaku fixed at 10/33 meter by Japan's 1891 law, one jo comes to exactly 100/33 meter, about 3.03 meters or 9.94 feet. Earlier values shifted with the shaku, which ranged from roughly 30.2 to 30.3 centimeters, so premodern figures in jo are good only to within a centimeter or two per shaku.

It sits between the ken, at six shaku, and the chō, at 360 shaku. Its use outside tradition is limited. Modern building plans and trade measures use meters, so the jo appears mainly in historical texts, descriptions of temples and in discussion of the older measuring system.

1 jō = 3.03030303 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement; Japanese Wikipedia: Shakkanho (尺貫法); Wikipedia: Shaku (unit)

Kilometer (km)

Metric (SI)Current unit

1,000 meters. The standard unit for road distances in most countries.

A name for 1,000 meters took a while to settle. In 1793 France's National Convention made the metre the sole French unit of length, and the first proposed name for the thousand-metre multiple was millaire. Everyday French usage then leaned on the myriametre, 10,000 meters, well into the 1800s. The Netherlands adopted the kilometre in 1817, under the local name mijl, and made it the only official unit of that size in 1867. In 1935 the CIPM dropped the myria- prefix, which left the kilometre as the standard unit for road-scale distances.

Kilo- is the SI prefix for a thousand, and the kilometre is now the preferred unit for land distances in most of the world, with the United States, the United Kingdom and Liberia among those that still use the mile. One kilometre is about 0.621 mile. The main span of Lisbon's 25 de Abril Bridge, at 1.013 km, gives a sense of the scale. Even its pronunciation has been argued over: in 1970 Australia's Metric Conversion Board made stress on the first syllable official, although Prime Minister Gough Whitlam argued for stress on the second. Military slang in several countries calls it a klick.

1 kilometer = 1,000 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilometre; Wikipedia: Metric prefix; BIPM: history of the metre

Related conversions

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