Yards to US Survey Feet (yd to ft (US))

1 yard equals 2.999994 US survey feet exactly.

1 yard = 2.999994 US survey feet

How to convert yards to US survey feet

To convert yards to US survey feet, multiply the number of yards by 2.999994. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply US survey feet by 0.333334 (rounded).

US survey feet = yards × 2.999994

Example: 10 yards = 29.99994 US survey feet.

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

US Survey Foot (ft (US))

US land surveyHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

Exactly 1200/3937 meters, about 2 parts per million longer than the international foot. Retired in the US at the end of 2022 but still found in older land records.

Two feet coexisted in the United States for sixty-three years. The Mendenhall Order of 1893 tied American units to the metre at 39.37 inches to the metre, which makes the survey foot exactly 1200/3937 m, about 0.3048006 m. In 1959 the international foot was set at exactly 0.3048 m for industry and trade, but the older foot was kept for geodetic work until control networks could be readjusted. That readjustment was finished in 1986, yet the survey foot stayed in use.

The two differ by about 2 parts per million. That is trivial for a house lot but adds up in the State Plane Coordinate System, where coordinates can lie hundreds of thousands of feet from their origin. NIST and the National Geodetic Survey announced that the survey foot should not be used after December 31, 2022, with the international foot replacing it, leaving it for historic and legacy data. Before that, state laws varied: about 40 of 56 jurisdictions based surveying on the survey foot, six on the international foot, and ten did not specify.

1 US survey foot = 0.3048006096 meters (approximately).

Sources: NIST: U.S. survey foot; Wikipedia: Foot (unit)

Related conversions

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