Li (Chinese) to Miles (li to mi)
1 li (Chinese) equals 0.3106855961 miles (rounded).
How to convert li (Chinese) to miles
To convert li (Chinese) to miles, multiply the number of li (Chinese) by 0.3106855961. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply miles by 3.218688.
miles = li (Chinese) × 0.3106855961
Example: 10 li (Chinese) = 3.106855961 miles.
About these units
Li (Chinese) (li)
The modern Chinese 'mile', set at exactly 500 meters. Imperial-era li varied widely, from about 323 m under the Tang to roughly 540-650 m under the Qing.
Field and earth are the two components of the character for li, an apt picture of a distance about the size of a village. Chinese travel writing, military records and poetry counted roads in li, and phrases such as the ten-thousand-li Great Wall or thousand-li horses turned it into a figure of speech for great distance. English writers sometimes call it a Chinese mile, though it is nearer a third of an English mile.
Its length followed the chi and the number of chi counted per li. Wikipedia lists about 358 m for the Western Zhou, about 416 m for the Han, about 323 m for the Tang and 537 to 645 m for the Qing, when some usage counted 1,800 chi per li instead of 1,500. Republican li ranged around 500 to 545 m. The figure used here is the modern value of exactly 500 m, which is 1,500 modern chi.
1 li (Chinese) = 500 meters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Li (unit); Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement
Mile (mi)
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
Related conversions
- Miles to li (Chinese) (reverse)
- Li (Chinese) to meters
- Li (Chinese) to kilometers
- Li (Chinese) to centimeters
- Li (Chinese) to millimeters
- Li (Chinese) to inches
- Li (Chinese) to feet
- Li (Chinese) to yards
- Meters to miles
- Kilometers to miles
- Centimeters to miles
- Millimeters to miles
- Inches to miles
- Feet to miles
- Yards to miles
- Micrometers to miles
- Nanometers to miles
- Nautical miles to miles
- Pixels (CSS) to miles
- Light-years to miles
See all length units.