Yards to Chō (yd to chō)

1 yard equals 0.008382 chō exactly.

1 yard = 0.008382 chō

How to convert yards to chō

To convert yards to chō, multiply the number of yards by 0.008382. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply chō by 119.3032689 (rounded).

chō = yards × 0.008382

Example: 10 yards = 0.08382 chō.

About these 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

Chō (chō)

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

60 ken, about 109.09 m. A traditional measure of distance along roads and the length of a block.

Cho is written with a character that also means town or block, and the unit appears under the same name for area, which Japanese Wikipedia notes alongside the length meaning. As a length it equals 60 ken, or 360 shaku, putting it between the ken and the ri.

Under the 1891 law it is exactly 1200/11 meter, about 109.09 meters or 358 feet. Because the ken was longer in the 16th century than after the Tokugawa reduction around 1650, a cho measured in an older document may have been several percent longer, so such figures should be treated as approximate.

Thirty-six cho make one ri, so the cho worked as a convenient step for road distances and field layouts. Today it is a historical and place-name unit: the modern metric replacement is simply about 109 meters, roughly one city block.

1 chō = 109.0909091 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement; Japanese Wikipedia: Shakkanho (尺貫法); Wikipedia: Ken (unit)

Related conversions

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