Miles to Decameters (mi to dam)

1 mile equals 160.9344 decameters exactly.

1 mile = 160.9344 decameters

How to convert miles to decameters

To convert miles to decameters, multiply the number of miles by 160.9344. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply decameters by 0.006213711922 (rounded).

decameters = miles × 160.9344

Example: 10 miles = 1,609.344 decameters.

About these units

Mile (mi)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

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

Decameter (dam)

Metric (SI)Current unit

10 meters. An official SI prefix combination that is rarely used.

Spelling is the first complication with this unit. The BIPM and most English-speaking countries write decametre or decameter with the symbol dam, while NIST and American style guides prefer deka, as in dekameter. Both mean ten meters, which is about 10.94 yards or 393.7 inches. Wikipedia's article says little about the unit's history, so no dates are given here.

Meteorologists find it practical for expressing the altitude of geopotential heights. The cubic decameter is used for large water volumes, because one cubic decameter is 1,000 cubic meters, or one megaliter. The are, an older metric land measure, is a square decameter, equal to 100 square meters. One technical atmosphere is also the pressure of a decameter of water. In the metric length series it sits between the meter and the hectometer at 100 m.

1 decameter = 10 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Decametre; NIST: metric (SI) prefixes; Wikipedia: Metric prefix

Related conversions

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