Yards to Decameters (yd to dam)

1 yard equals 0.09144 decameters exactly.

1 yard = 0.09144 decameters

How to convert yards to decameters

To convert yards to decameters, multiply the number of yards by 0.09144. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply decameters by 10.93613298 (rounded).

decameters = yards × 0.09144

Example: 10 yards = 0.9144 decameters.

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

Decameter (dam)

Metric (SI)Current unit

10 meters. An official SI prefix combination that is rarely used.

Spelling is the first complication with this unit. The BIPM and most English-speaking countries write decametre or decameter with the symbol dam, while NIST and American style guides prefer deka, as in dekameter. Both mean ten meters, which is about 10.94 yards or 393.7 inches. Wikipedia's article says little about the unit's history, so no dates are given here.

Meteorologists find it practical for expressing the altitude of geopotential heights. The cubic decameter is used for large water volumes, because one cubic decameter is 1,000 cubic meters, or one megaliter. The are, an older metric land measure, is a square decameter, equal to 100 square meters. One technical atmosphere is also the pressure of a decameter of water. In the metric length series it sits between the meter and the hectometer at 100 m.

1 decameter = 10 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Decametre; NIST: metric (SI) prefixes; Wikipedia: Metric prefix

Related conversions

See all length units.