US Survey Feet to Inches (ft (US) to in)

1 US survey foot equals 12.000024 inches (rounded).

1 US survey foot = 12.000024 inches

How to convert US survey feet to inches

To convert US survey feet to inches, multiply the number of US survey feet by 12.000024. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply inches by 0.08333316667 (rounded).

inches = US survey feet × 12.000024

Example: 10 US survey feet = 120.00024 inches.

About these units

US Survey Foot (ft (US))

US land surveyHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

Exactly 1200/3937 meters, about 2 parts per million longer than the international foot. Retired in the US at the end of 2022 but still found in older land records.

Two feet coexisted in the United States for sixty-three years. The Mendenhall Order of 1893 tied American units to the metre at 39.37 inches to the metre, which makes the survey foot exactly 1200/3937 m, about 0.3048006 m. In 1959 the international foot was set at exactly 0.3048 m for industry and trade, but the older foot was kept for geodetic work until control networks could be readjusted. That readjustment was finished in 1986, yet the survey foot stayed in use.

The two differ by about 2 parts per million. That is trivial for a house lot but adds up in the State Plane Coordinate System, where coordinates can lie hundreds of thousands of feet from their origin. NIST and the National Geodetic Survey announced that the survey foot should not be used after December 31, 2022, with the international foot replacing it, leaving it for historic and legacy data. Before that, state laws varied: about 40 of 56 jurisdictions based surveying on the survey foot, six on the international foot, and ten did not specify.

1 US survey foot = 0.3048006096 meters (approximately).

Sources: NIST: U.S. survey foot; Wikipedia: Foot (unit)

Inch (in)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

1/12 of a foot. Defined as exactly 25.4 millimeters since 1959, when the US and Commonwealth countries agreed a common international inch.

Latin uncia, meaning one-twelfth, is the root of both inch and ounce, and it passed into Old English as ynce. Roman measurers divided their foot into twelve unciae, and the English inch kept that twelfth. After 1066 an inch was reckoned as three barleycorns, and a 1324 statute attributed to Edward II spelled out the definition as three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise. For centuries the inch was simply a twelfth of a foot, or a thirty-sixth of a yard, and the US and UK each kept their own copy of the standard yard.

Those copies differed slightly until the 1959 international agreement fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, which made the inch exactly 25.4 millimeters. The US adopted it in 1959 and the UK ratified it in 1963, effective 1964. Today the inch is still the customary unit in the United States and Canada, and the UK keeps it on road signs. Worldwide it also names display diagonals, wheel rims, tire codes and pipe sizes.

1 inch = 0.0254 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Inch; Wikipedia: Yard; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

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