Varas to Inches (vara to in)

1 vara (Castilian) equals 32.90944882 inches (rounded).

1 vara (Castilian) = 32.90944882 inches

How to convert varas to inches

To convert varas to inches, multiply the number of varas by 32.90944882. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply inches by 0.03038640986 (rounded).

inches = varas × 32.90944882

Example: 10 varas = 329.0944882 inches.

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

About these units

Vara (Castilian) (vara)

Spanish & PortugueseHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

The Castilian vara, about 83.59 cm (3 pies). Regional varas differed; the Texas vara of 33⅓ inches (84.67 cm) is still found in old land grants.

Vara means rod or staff. The Texas State Historical Association traces the word to a Latin term for a long, straight branch, which became a lance and then the staff of office carried by mayors and judges. Because that staff was used for checking cloth and land, the name passed to the measuring stick and then to the unit itself.

Across Spain the vara varied from city to city, from about 0.77 m in Huesca to roughly 1.56 m in Barcelona. The Castilian standard, fixed by law in 1801 at three pies, is about 835.9 mm, and the figure used here is 0.8359 m. The pie of about 278.6 mm was the base, with the paso equal to five pies and the league defined as 6,666 and two thirds varas.

Spanish settlers carried the unit overseas. California commonly treated the vara as 33 inches, Argentina used about 866 mm, and Texas defined it as 33 and one third inches, or 846.67 mm. Land grants in Texas were surveyed in varas, so deeds from the nineteenth and even the twentieth century still quote them. A vara is a little shorter than a modern yard.

1 vara (Castilian) = 0.8359 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Vara (unit); Texas State Historical Association: Vara; Wikipedia: Spanish customary units

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

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