Miles to Rods (mi to rd)

1 mile equals 320 rods exactly.

1 mile = 320 rods

How to convert miles to rods

To convert miles to rods, multiply the number of miles by 320. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply rods by 0.003125.

rods = miles × 320

Example: 10 miles = 3,200 rods.

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

Rod (rd)

US & ImperialTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

16.5 feet or 5.5 yards (5.0292 m), also called a pole or perch. A quarter of a chain; a basic unit of English land measurement.

Three names, rod, pole and perch, all describe the same stick. Perch comes from the Roman pertica, a ten-foot measuring pole of about 2.96 m, while rod and pole name the physical staff that farmers and surveyors carried. A statute from around the thirteenth or fourteenth century defined the perch as five and a half ells. In the thirteenth century English perches ranged from 18 to 24 feet, and a parliamentary report of 1820 still found lengths between 16.5 and 25 feet in local use.

The version that won out is 16.5 feet, or 5.5 yards, exactly 5.0292 m, which is the figure used here. It is a quarter of a chain, 40 to a furlong and 320 to a mile, and 160 square rods make an acre. Ireland kept a longer perch of 21 feet. The rod faded from legal use in the UK with metrication from 1965, but allotments are still measured in square poles, canoeists count portages in rods, and pipeline easements and US property descriptions still use it.

1 rod = 5.0292 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Rod (unit); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8 (length conversion factors)

Related conversions

See all length units.