Toises to Kilometers (toise to km)

1 toise equals 0.00194903631 kilometers (rounded).

1 toise = 0.00194903631 kilometers

How to convert toises to kilometers

To convert toises to kilometers, multiply the number of toises by 0.00194903631. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 513.0740741 (rounded).

kilometers = toises × 0.00194903631

Example: 10 toises = 0.0194903631 kilometers.

About these units

Toise (toise)

French (Ancien Régime)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)

Six pieds du roi, about 1.949 m. Used to define the length of the meter: the first metric standard was based on a ratio to the toise.

Latin tensa brachia, meaning outstretched arms, is the root of toise, and the unit began as a fathom-like span of a man's reach. Under the Ancien Régime it was fixed at six pieds du roi, 72 pouces or 864 lignes, which equals about 1.949 metres by the 1799 definition.

Its physical standard was an iron bar set into a wall of the Grand Châtelet in Paris, in place before 1394. After the bar bent, a replacement made in 1667 was about half a percent shorter. In 1735 two new geodetic standards were calibrated against it, and one of them, the Toise of Peru, took part in the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission and became the official standard in 1766.

The toise also shaped the metre. The 1799 metre was defined as 443.296 lignes, or 3 pieds and 11.296 lignes of the Toise of Peru, which matches 13,853 parts of 27,000 of a toise. Later French usage varied: from 1812 to 1840 the customary toise was set to exactly 2 metres, and other countries had their own toises, such as about 1.8 metres in Switzerland.

1 toise = 1.94903631 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Toise; Wikipedia: Pied du roi; Wikipedia: Traditional French units of measurement

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.