Leagues to Yards (lea to yd)

1 league equals 5,280 yards exactly.

1 league = 5,280 yards

How to convert leagues to yards

To convert leagues to yards, multiply the number of leagues by 5,280. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply yards by 0.0001893939394 (rounded).

yards = leagues × 5,280

Example: 10 leagues = 52,800 yards.

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

Yard (yd)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

3 feet or 36 inches, exactly 0.9144 meters. Used for sports fields, fabric and short distances in the US and UK.

Yard descends from the Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a branch, stave or measuring rod. It first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, though there it names a tax unit, the yardland. Around 959 to 963 King Edgar ordered that the measure held at Winchester be used throughout his realm, the earliest record of a prototype. A story that Henry I fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to his thumb is later folklore, and the true origin, whether pace, cubit or waist, remains speculative.

Britain defined the Imperial Standard Yard in 1824 as the distance between two marks on a brass rod at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. A fire in 1834 damaged the standard, a replacement was made in 1845, and the Weights and Measures Act 1855 recognized it. The 1959 international agreement then fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter. Today it measures American and Canadian football fields, association football pitches and cricket pitches, appears on UK road signs for short distances, and is still used to sell fabric in the US and UK.

1 yard = 0.9144 meters (exactly).

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

Related conversions

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