Varas to Yards (vara to yd)

1 vara (Castilian) equals 0.9141513561 yards (rounded).

1 vara (Castilian) = 0.9141513561 yards

How to convert varas to yards

To convert varas to yards, multiply the number of varas by 0.9141513561. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply yards by 1.093910755 (rounded).

yards = varas × 0.9141513561

Example: 10 varas = 9.141513561 yards.

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

Yard (yd)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

3 feet or 36 inches, exactly 0.9144 meters. Used for sports fields, fabric and short distances in the US and UK.

Yard descends from the Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a branch, stave or measuring rod. It first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, though there it names a tax unit, the yardland. Around 959 to 963 King Edgar ordered that the measure held at Winchester be used throughout his realm, the earliest record of a prototype. A story that Henry I fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to his thumb is later folklore, and the true origin, whether pace, cubit or waist, remains speculative.

Britain defined the Imperial Standard Yard in 1824 as the distance between two marks on a brass rod at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. A fire in 1834 damaged the standard, a replacement was made in 1845, and the Weights and Measures Act 1855 recognized it. The 1959 international agreement then fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter. Today it measures American and Canadian football fields, association football pitches and cricket pitches, appears on UK road signs for short distances, and is still used to sell fabric in the US and UK.

1 yard = 0.9144 meters (exactly).

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

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