Lieues to Kilometers (lieue to km)

1 lieue (Paris league) equals 3.89807262 kilometers (rounded).

1 lieue (Paris league) = 3.89807262 kilometers

How to convert lieues to kilometers

To convert lieues to kilometers, multiply the number of lieues by 3.89807262. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 0.256537037 (rounded).

kilometers = lieues × 3.89807262

Example: 10 lieues = 38.9807262 kilometers.

About these units

Lieue (Paris League) (lieue)

French (Ancien Régime)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)

2,000 toises, about 3.898 km: the Paris league of 1674. The later post league (lieue de poste, 1737) was longer, at 2,200 toises or about 4.288 km.

Lieue descends from the Celtic league that the Romans adopted as the leuga. The Gallic version, about one and a half Roman miles, replaced the Roman mile as the official road distance in Gaul and Germania under Septimius Severus. In France the word later covered several different distances rather than one.

The figure used here, about 3,898 metres, is 2,000 toises, which Wikipedia's article on traditional French units calls the Paris league of 1674. The lieue de poste, which measured stages on the royal coach and mail routes, was set at 2,200 toises in 1737, about 4.288 kilometres. Wikipedia's league article lists the post league at the shorter 3,898 metres, so its two articles disagree about which league carried that name.

Other French leagues ranged from 10,000 to 14,400 pieds, or roughly 3.25 to 4.68 kilometres. The metric lieue of exactly 4,000 metres was used in the customary system between 1812 and 1840. Since the unit was never standardized, any conversion to kilometres should name which lieue is meant.

1 lieue (Paris league) = 3,898.07262 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: League (unit); Wikipedia: Traditional French units of measurement; Wikipedia: Toise

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

Related conversions

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