Yards to Links (yd to li)

1 yard equals 4.545454545 links (rounded).

1 yard = 4.545454545 links

How to convert yards to links

To convert yards to links, multiply the number of yards by 4.545454545. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply links by 0.22.

links = yards × 4.545454545

Example: 10 yards = 45.45454545 links.

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

Link (li)

US & ImperialTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

One hundredth of a chain, 7.92 inches (0.201168 m). A surveying unit, one link of Gunter's chain.

Each link is the small piece that makes up a surveyor's chain, and the chain's hundred links gave decimal fractions to a system built on feet and yards. A single link measures 7.92 inches, or exactly 0.201168 m, because it is one hundredth of a 66-foot chain. Because of that, distances could be recorded in whole chains and links without fractions.

Edmund Gunter introduced the 100-link chain in England in 1620, and the link spread across the English-speaking world with it. Twenty-five links make a rod, 1,000 make a furlong and 8,000 make a mile. The exact size depends on which foot is used: the pre-1959 imperial foot gives about 201.1677 mm, the US survey foot about 201.1684 mm, and the international foot exactly 201.168 mm. Since the US survey foot was retired after 2022, the international value applies there too. Metric and electronic surveying replaced links in the twentieth century, though old deeds still use them.

1 link = 0.201168 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Link (unit); Wikipedia: Chain (unit)

Related conversions

See all length units.