Micrometers to Centimeters (µm to cm)

1 micrometer equals 0.0001 centimeters exactly.

1 micrometer = 0.0001 centimeters

How to convert micrometers to centimeters

To convert micrometers to centimeters, multiply the number of micrometers by 0.0001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 10,000.

centimeters = micrometers × 0.0001

Example: 10 micrometers = 0.001 centimeters.

About these units

Micrometer (µm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One millionth of a meter, also called a micron. Typical bacteria are a few micrometers long; a human hair is roughly 70 µm thick.

Two names, micron and micrometer, have shared this unit for more than a century. The prefix micro- was adopted in 1873 alongside the CGS system, and in 1879 the term micron and the symbol μ were officially accepted for the micrometer when used on its own. That created a clash once SI came along: μ was also the symbol for the prefix micro-. The 13th CGPM revoked micron and its symbol in 1967 to 1968, leaving micrometer and μm as the official name and symbol, though micron lives on in everyday speech.

A micrometer is a thousandth of a millimeter, and it is the natural scale for biology and filtration. A typical red blood cell is 6 to 8 μm across, a bacterium is 1 to 10 μm long, and a fog droplet is around 10 μm. Human hair ranges from about 17 to 181 μm in diameter, and paper is 70 to 180 μm thick. Infrared radiation is measured in micrometers of wavelength, and wool is graded by fibre width. Some American writers keep micron because micrometer also names the caliper-style measuring tool.

1 micrometer = 0.000001 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Micrometre; Wikipedia: Metric prefix

Centimeter (cm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One hundredth of a meter. Used for body measurements, clothing and everyday objects.

Scientists, rather than shopkeepers, gave the centimeter its place. In 1832 Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed a system of absolute units built on length, mass and time, choosing the millimeter, milligram and second. In 1873 a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose members included James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), recommended the centimeter, gram and second instead. That CGS system dominated physics for decades, until the metre-kilogram-second system replaced it in the mid-twentieth century and led to SI.

CGS units proved awkward for rooms and buildings, which run to hundreds of centimeters, but the centimeter itself never went away. It is still the everyday unit for height, clothing and small objects, and it appears in map scales and rainfall reports. An adult fingernail is roughly one centimeter wide, and a milliliter is defined as exactly one cubic centimeter. An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. The CGS system itself survives mainly in theoretical physics and astrophysics, where Gaussian units are still common.

1 centimeter = 0.01 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units; Wikipedia: Centimetre; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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