Miles to Versts (mi to verst)

1 mile equals 1.508571429 versts (rounded).

1 mile = 1.508571429 versts

How to convert miles to versts

To convert miles to versts, multiply the number of miles by 1.508571429. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply versts by 0.6628787879 (rounded).

versts = miles × 1.508571429

Example: 10 miles = 15.08571429 versts.

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

Verst (verst)

Russian (Imperial)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)

500 sazhens or 3,500 feet (1.0668 km). The standard Russian unit of distance before the metric system.

Travellers in Tsarist Russia read road distances in versts, a word often linked to the idea of a turn, as in the length of a furrow before a plough turns. The unit was long and not fixed: in the 17th century a verst counted 700 sazhens, about 1.49 km, and under Peter the Great it was cut to 500 sazhens.

That later verst is 3,500 English feet, or 1.0668 km, which is the figure used here. A border verst, used in land surveys, was twice as long. One English-language article lists the verst as 1,500 sazhens in a summary table, but its own metric and feet figures only work with 500, so the larger number appears to be a slip.

Finland kept its own virsta, defined in 1827 at 1,068.84 m, until metrication in the 1880s. In Russia, versts stayed on milestones and in novels well into the 20th century, and about 0.94 verst makes a kilometre.

1 verst = 1,066.8 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Verst; Wikipedia: Obsolete Russian units of measurement

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