Kilometers to Nautical Miles (km to nmi)

1 kilometer equals 0.5399568035 nautical miles (rounded).

1 kilometer = 0.5399568035 nautical miles

How to convert kilometers to nautical miles

To convert kilometers to nautical miles, multiply the number of kilometers by 0.5399568035. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply nautical miles by 1.852.

nautical miles = kilometers × 0.5399568035

Example: 10 kilometers = 5.399568035 nautical miles.

About these units

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

Nautical Mile (nmi)

NauticalCurrent unit

Exactly 1,852 meters, close to one minute of latitude. The standard unit of distance at sea and in aviation; one nautical mile per hour is one knot.

Sailors wanted a distance that matched their charts, so the nautical mile was tied to the globe itself: one minute of arc, one sixtieth of a degree, of latitude. Earth's polar circumference is therefore close to 21,600 nautical miles. Because Earth is flattened at the poles, a minute of latitude is about 1,843 meters at the equator and about 1,862 at the poles, so the fixed value of 1,852 meters is a compromise. France's definition of the meter produced a figure near 1,851.85 meters, which helped set the number.

The First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco defined the international nautical mile as exactly 1,852 meters in 1929. The United States kept its own variant until 1954, and the United Kingdom adopted the international value in 1970. A speed of one nautical mile per hour is one knot. The unit is not part of SI but remains the norm in air, marine and space navigation and in defining territorial waters, because distances on a chart can be read straight off the latitude scale. Its symbols vary: NM, nmi and M all appear.

1 nautical mile = 1,852 meters (exactly).

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

Related conversions

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