Wa (Thai) (wa)

ThaiTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

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

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

About the wa (Thai)

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.

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

Wa (Thai) conversion chart

1 wa (Thai) expressed in every other length unit:

More Thai units

• sen (Thai) (length)
• rai (Thai) (area)
• ngan (Thai) (area)
• square wa (Thai) (area)

All Thai units

Browse all length units.