Kilometers to Stadia (km to stad)

1 kilometer equals 5.208333333 stadia (rounded).

1 kilometer = 5.208333333 stadia

How to convert kilometers to stadia

To convert kilometers to stadia, multiply the number of kilometers by 5.208333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply stadia by 0.192.

stadia = kilometers × 5.208333333

Example: 10 kilometers = 52.08333333 stadia.

Approximate value. Standards for the stadion varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

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

Stadion (stad)

Ancient GreekHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

The length of the footrace track at Olympia, about 192 m. Other Greek cities used slightly different stadia, from roughly 150 to 210 m.

From the Greek word stadion came the Latin stadium and the English stade, and eventually the stadium where athletes compete. It was the footrace track, and as a distance it was defined, according to Herodotus, as 600 Greek feet. Because the foot differed between cities, the stadion did too. The Olympic version is put at about 192 m, which one table describes as 200 Heracles steps, a proposal from Carl Lehmann-Haupt in 1929.

Estimates for other stadia show how loose the unit is. A figure near 185 m is the most common convergence for the Ptolemaic or Attic stadion, while Babylonian-Persian and Phoenician-Egyptian values reach about 196 and 209 m, and an itinerary stadion near 157 m has been argued for road distances. The overall range is roughly 150 to 210 m. The choice matters for judging Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth. Eight stadia made a Roman mile, and the medieval stadium came to mean the furlong, about 201 m in modern terms.

1 stadion = 192 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Stadion (unit); Wikipedia: Ancient Greek units of measurement

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