Yards to Sazhens (yd to sazhen)

1 yard equals 0.4285714286 sazhens (rounded).

1 yard = 0.4285714286 sazhens

How to convert yards to sazhens

To convert yards to sazhens, multiply the number of yards by 0.4285714286. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply sazhens by 2.333333333 (rounded).

sazhens = yards × 0.4285714286

Example: 10 yards = 4.285714286 sazhens.

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

Sazhen (sazhen)

Russian (Imperial)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)

Exactly 7 feet (2.1336 m). The standard Russian fathom, defined by Peter the Great to match the English foot.

Russian builders, surveyors and rope makers measured with the sazhen, a word usually translated as fathom. In its Imperial form it was three arshins, or exactly seven English feet, giving the 2.1336 m used here. The English link comes from Peter the Great, who redefined the Russian units in terms of English inches and feet instead of replacing them.

Older and informal sazhens were looser. The swung sazhen was the span between the fingertips of outstretched arms, about 1.76 m, while the oblique sazhen, measured from a raised hand to the opposite foot, was 3.5 arshins or 2.4892 m. Land area was counted in square sazhens, and the treasury desyatina contained 2,400 of them.

Five hundred sazhens made a verst. Seven English feet is a convenient size to picture, since it is close to a tall doorway, and a sazhen equals about 2.13 m in metric terms.

1 sazhen = 2.1336 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Sazhen; Wikipedia: Obsolete Russian units of measurement

Related conversions

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