Nautical Miles to Miles (nmi to mi)
1 nautical mile equals 1.150779448 miles (rounded).
How to convert nautical miles to miles
To convert nautical miles to miles, multiply the number of nautical miles by 1.150779448. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply miles by 0.8689762419 (rounded).
miles = nautical miles × 1.150779448
Example: 10 nautical miles = 11.50779448 miles.
About these units
Nautical Mile (nmi)
Exactly 1,852 meters, close to one minute of latitude. The standard unit of distance at sea and in aviation; one nautical mile per hour is one knot.
Sailors wanted a distance that matched their charts, so the nautical mile was tied to the globe itself: one minute of arc, one sixtieth of a degree, of latitude. Earth's polar circumference is therefore close to 21,600 nautical miles. Because Earth is flattened at the poles, a minute of latitude is about 1,843 meters at the equator and about 1,862 at the poles, so the fixed value of 1,852 meters is a compromise. France's definition of the meter produced a figure near 1,851.85 meters, which helped set the number.
The First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco defined the international nautical mile as exactly 1,852 meters in 1929. The United States kept its own variant until 1954, and the United Kingdom adopted the international value in 1970. A speed of one nautical mile per hour is one knot. The unit is not part of SI but remains the norm in air, marine and space navigation and in defining territorial waters, because distances on a chart can be read straight off the latitude scale. Its symbols vary: NM, nmi and M all appear.
1 nautical mile = 1,852 meters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Nautical mile; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors
Mile (mi)
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
Related conversions
- Miles to nautical miles (reverse)
- Nautical miles to meters
- Nautical miles to kilometers
- Nautical miles to centimeters
- Nautical miles to millimeters
- Nautical miles to inches
- Nautical miles to feet
- Nautical miles to yards
- Nautical miles to micrometers
- Nautical miles to nanometers
- Nautical miles to pixels (CSS)
- Nautical miles to light-years
- Meters to miles
- Kilometers to miles
- Centimeters to miles
- Millimeters to miles
- Inches to miles
- Feet to miles
- Yards to miles
- Micrometers to miles
- Nanometers to miles
- Pixels (CSS) to miles
- Light-years to miles
- Picometers to miles
See all length units.