Picas to Kilometers (pc to km)

1 pica equals 0.000004233333333 kilometers (rounded).

1 pica = 0.000004233333333 kilometers

How to convert picas to kilometers

To convert picas to kilometers, multiply the number of picas by 0.000004233333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 236,220.4724 (rounded).

kilometers = picas × 0.000004233333333

Example: 10 picas = 0.00004233333333 kilometers.

About these units

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

Kilometer (km)

Metric (SI)Current unit

1,000 meters. The standard unit for road distances in most countries.

A name for 1,000 meters took a while to settle. In 1793 France's National Convention made the metre the sole French unit of length, and the first proposed name for the thousand-metre multiple was millaire. Everyday French usage then leaned on the myriametre, 10,000 meters, well into the 1800s. The Netherlands adopted the kilometre in 1817, under the local name mijl, and made it the only official unit of that size in 1867. In 1935 the CIPM dropped the myria- prefix, which left the kilometre as the standard unit for road-scale distances.

Kilo- is the SI prefix for a thousand, and the kilometre is now the preferred unit for land distances in most of the world, with the United States, the United Kingdom and Liberia among those that still use the mile. One kilometre is about 0.621 mile. The main span of Lisbon's 25 de Abril Bridge, at 1.013 km, gives a sense of the scale. Even its pronunciation has been argued over: in 1970 Australia's Metric Conversion Board made stress on the first syllable official, although Prime Minister Gough Whitlam argued for stress on the second. Military slang in several countries calls it a klick.

1 kilometer = 1,000 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilometre; Wikipedia: Metric prefix; BIPM: history of the metre

Related conversions

See all length units.