Sun to Centimeters (sun to cm)

1 sun equals 3.03030303 centimeters (rounded).

1 sun = 3.03030303 centimeters

How to convert sun to centimeters

To convert sun to centimeters, multiply the number of sun by 3.03030303. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 0.33.

centimeters = sun × 3.03030303

Example: 10 sun = 30.3030303 centimeters.

About these units

Sun (sun)

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

One tenth of a shaku, about 3.03 cm. The Japanese 'inch', still used in carpentry.

Sun is the Japanese reading of the Chinese character for cun, the Chinese inch, which was traditionally the width of a person's thumb at the knuckle. Japan took the whole system over from China, and the sun kept its place as one tenth of the foot-like shaku.

Because the shaku was fixed in 1891 at 10/33 meter, the sun works out to 1/33 meter, about 30.3 millimeters or 1.19 inches. That makes it about 19 percent longer than a modern inch. Before the legal definition, the size drifted slightly between eras and regions, so older measurements in sun carry some uncertainty.

Smaller steps below it, such as the bu, divide it further. Today the sun survives mainly in carpentry, joinery and traditional crafts, where dimensions are still quoted in shaku and sun before being translated into the millimeters on modern rulers.

1 sun = 0.0303030303 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cun (unit); Wikipedia: Shaku (unit); Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement

Centimeter (cm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One hundredth of a meter. Used for body measurements, clothing and everyday objects.

Scientists, rather than shopkeepers, gave the centimeter its place. In 1832 Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed a system of absolute units built on length, mass and time, choosing the millimeter, milligram and second. In 1873 a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose members included James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), recommended the centimeter, gram and second instead. That CGS system dominated physics for decades, until the metre-kilogram-second system replaced it in the mid-twentieth century and led to SI.

CGS units proved awkward for rooms and buildings, which run to hundreds of centimeters, but the centimeter itself never went away. It is still the everyday unit for height, clothing and small objects, and it appears in map scales and rainfall reports. An adult fingernail is roughly one centimeter wide, and a milliliter is defined as exactly one cubic centimeter. An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. The CGS system itself survives mainly in theoretical physics and astrophysics, where Gaussian units are still common.

1 centimeter = 0.01 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units; Wikipedia: Centimetre; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

See all length units.