Miles to Picas (mi to pc)

1 mile equals 380,160 picas exactly.

1 mile = 380,160 picas

How to convert miles to picas

To convert miles to picas, multiply the number of miles by 380,160. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply picas by 0.00000263047138 (rounded).

picas = miles × 380,160

Example: 10 miles = 3,801,600 picas.

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

Pica (pc)

Typography & screenCurrent unit

12 points, or one sixth of an inch (4.2333 mm). A printing measure, used in layout software.

Anyone who sets column widths in a layout program meets the pica, a printing measure divided into 12 points. Its size has varied by country. The French cicero equals 12 Didot points, about 4.512 mm. The American pica set by type founders in 1886 is about 4.217 mm (0.16604 inch), and the TeX pica is 400/2409 inch.

The figure used here is the desktop publishing pica, exactly one sixth of an inch or about 4.233 mm, which equals 12 of the 1/72 inch points. NIST lists the computer pica as an exact conversion. Six picas make an inch, and CSS uses the abbreviation pc for it. Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress write measurements as picas and points, so 5p6 means five and a half picas. Designers also count characters per pica to fit text: 11 point Helvetica has about 2.4, so a 30 pica line holds roughly 72 characters. The Wikipedia article does not explain where the name came from.

1 pica = 0.004233333333 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Pica (typography); Wikipedia: Point (typography); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8

Related conversions

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