Roman Leagues to Kilometers (leuga to km)

1 Roman league equals 2.22 kilometers exactly.

1 Roman league = 2.22 kilometers

How to convert Roman leagues to kilometers

To convert Roman leagues to kilometers, multiply the number of Roman leagues by 2.22. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 0.4504504505 (rounded).

kilometers = Roman leagues × 2.22

Example: 10 Roman leagues = 22.2 kilometers.

Approximate value. Standards for the Roman league varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Roman League (leuga)

Ancient RomanHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

One and a half Roman miles (7,500 Roman feet), about 2.22 km. Used in Gaul and later across the empire for longer distances.

Gaul, not Rome, gave this unit its name. The Latin leuga or leuca came from a Celtic measure of the Gauls that the Romans adopted, and it is the ancestor of the later European league. It may originally have approximated the distance a person could walk in an hour, though that is a suggestion rather than a documented definition.

In Roman terms it was fixed at one and a half Roman miles, or 7,500 Roman feet, which comes to about 2.22 km. Under Septimius Severus this Gallo-Roman league replaced the mile as the official road distance in the Gallic and Germanic provinces. Even so, its practical length varied by region and period, so 2,220 m is a convention based on the 296 mm foot rather than a measured constant.

Later leagues strayed far from the Roman original. Medieval and later values ran from about 2.2 km up to nearly 8 km, with the English league taken as three miles, the Spanish common league near 5.57 km, and a French metric lieue set at exactly 4 km in 1812. No country officially uses it now, though Jules Verne's famous title keeps the word familiar.

1 Roman league = 2,220 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: League (unit); Wikipedia: Roman units of measurement; Wikipedia: Roman mile

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

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