Wa (Thai) to Kilometers (wa to km)

1 wa (Thai) equals 0.002 kilometers exactly.

1 wa (Thai) = 0.002 kilometers

How to convert wa (Thai) to kilometers

To convert wa (Thai) to kilometers, multiply the number of wa (Thai) by 0.002. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilometers by 500.

kilometers = wa (Thai) × 0.002

Example: 10 wa (Thai) = 0.02 kilometers.

About these units

Wa (Thai) (wa)

ThaiTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Exactly 2 meters, the Thai fathom. Used in land measurement alongside the rai.

Wa is the Thai fathom, a length of 2 meters. It belongs to a traditional Thai scale built on the human body, in which the khuep (span) is 25 cm, the sok (cubit) is 50 cm, and four sok make one wa, the span of outstretched arms.

Larger distances were counted in the sen, which is 20 wa, and the long road measure yot, equal to 400 sen. Surveyors working on the Royal Thai Survey Department cadastral survey, begun in 1896, tied these units to metric lengths, and the wa kept the round value of 2 m that it carries today.

Because the metric figure is exact, the old body-based uncertainty has gone. A wa still appears in land deeds and frontage descriptions, and in daily speech a plot may be described as so many wa wide. It is also the side of the square wa, which is 4 square meters.

1 wa (Thai) = 2 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Thai units of measurement; Wikipedia: Rai (unit)

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.