Leguas to Kilometers (legua to km)

1 legua (Castilian) equals 5.572666667 kilometers (rounded).

1 legua (Castilian) = 5.572666667 kilometers

How to convert leguas to kilometers

To convert leguas to kilometers, multiply the number of leguas by 5.572666667. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 0.1794473023 (rounded).

kilometers = leguas × 5.572666667

Example: 10 leguas = 55.72666667 kilometers.

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

About these units

Legua (Castilian) (legua)

Spanish & PortugueseHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

About 5.57 km, equal to 6,666⅔ varas. The standard Spanish league; Portugal and Latin America used different values.

Spanish legua is a descendant of the Roman leuga, itself taken from an older Celtic distance used in Gaul. In medieval Castile it was reckoned as three Spanish miles, so its real length depended on the local foot and on how carefully a road was paced out. A decree of Philip II in 1568 abolished the older legal league of roughly 4.18 km and set the league at about 5.57 km, the figure used here.

That league was fixed at 20,000 Castilian feet, which the Spanish law of 1801 later expressed as 6,666 and two thirds varas. It served for overland travel, for describing the extent of colonial land grants, and, as a square league, for ranch and estate areas in Texas and Mexico. Spanish America never agreed on one value: Mexico used a league of 5,000 varas near 4.19 km, Chile about 4.51 km, and Buenos Aires about 5.15 km.

A later legua nueva of 8,000 varas, close to 6.69 km, was also defined in 1766. Today a Castilian legua is a little under three and a half modern statute miles, and the word survives in place names and in loose speech for a walking hour.

1 legua (Castilian) = 5,572.666667 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: League (unit); Wikipedia: Spanish customary units; Wikipedia: Vara (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

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