Leagues to Miles (lea to mi)

1 league equals 3 miles exactly.

1 league = 3 miles

How to convert leagues to miles

To convert leagues to miles, multiply the number of leagues by 3. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply miles by 0.3333333333 (rounded).

miles = leagues × 3

Example: 10 leagues = 30 miles.

About these units

League (lea)

US & ImperialHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

Three statute miles (4.828 km). Said to be roughly the distance a person could walk in an hour; the length varied widely across Europe.

How far can a person walk in an hour? Roughly that question lies behind the league, which may once have approximated the answer. The Romans borrowed the idea from Gaul, calling it the leuga Gallica and fixing it at one and a half Roman miles, about 2.2 km. The word survives in several languages, yet the length it names has been anything from about 2.2 km to nearly 7.9 km depending on the country and the century.

In England the land league was most often three statute miles, which gives 4.83 km, or exactly 4,828.032 m, the figure used here. A medieval chronicle from Battle Abbey instead defined the English leuga as 7,680 feet. French lieues ranged from about 3.25 to 4.68 km, and a metric lieue of 4,000 m was legal from 1812 to 1840. The Spanish legua of about 5.57 km lasted in Latin America, where it also measured land area in early grants in Texas and New Mexico. No country defines it officially today.

1 league = 4,828.032 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: League (unit); Wikipedia: Mile

Mile (mi)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

5,280 feet or 1,760 yards, exactly 1,609.344 meters. This is the statute (international) mile used on US and UK roads.

A thousand paces gave the mile its name. It descends from the Latin mille passus, the Roman mile, by way of Old English mil and Middle English myle. For centuries after Rome, miles of many lengths coexisted; a sixteenth-century Mercator map, for example, shows small, medium and large Flemish miles on a single scale bar. The English statute mile was fixed by an Act of Parliament under Elizabeth I in 1593, which declared that a mile contains eight furlongs, or 5,280 feet.

The 1959 international yard and pound agreement made that mile exactly 1,609.344 meters. A slightly longer US survey mile, about 1,609.347 meters, lingered in American land surveys and was slated for retirement from 1 January 2023. Today the mile is the road unit of the United Kingdom, the United States, Liberia and Myanmar, along with several territories such as the Bahamas, Belize, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. In Canada it survives chiefly in rail transport and horse racing.

1 mile = 1,609.344 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Mile; Wikipedia: Foot (unit); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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