Dan (Chinese) (dan)
100 jin, or 50 kg in the modern market system. Historically known as the picul; Hong Kong's picul is about 60.48 kg.
1 dan (Chinese) = 50 kilograms (exactly).
About the dan (Chinese)
Dan means a burden, and the character 擔 shows a person carrying a load on a pole across the shoulders. The same unit is written 石 in older texts and is known in English as the picul, a word borrowed from Malay for carrying something on the shoulder. For most of imperial history a dan was 120 catties, roughly what one porter could manage, and it served for rice, salt, tea and other bulk goods moved by caravan, boat or road.
Because the underlying jin changed from dynasty to dynasty, the dan drifted too. The jin was about 250 g before the Qin, around 220 g under the Eastern Han, about 633 g in the Tang and Song periods, and about 590 g under the Ming and Qing. The Republic of China fixed the market system in 1930 and the People's Republic kept it, so the figure used here is 100 jin of 500 g, or exactly 50 kg. That is a convenient fifty-kilogram sack, and it still appears in farm and grain statistics. Hong Kong kept its own picul of 60.478982 kg.
Sources: Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement; Wikipedia: Picul; Wikipedia: Catty
Dan (Chinese) conversion chart
1 dan (Chinese) expressed in every other weight & mass unit:
| Unit | 1 dan (Chinese) |
|---|---|
| Kilograms | 50 |
| Grams | 50,000 |
| Metric Tons | 0.05 |
| Pounds | 110.2311311 |
| Ounces | 1,763.698097 |
| Milligrams | 50,000,000 |
| Micrograms | 50,000,000,000 |
| Carats | 250,000 |
| Stone | 7.873652221 |
| Short Tons | 0.05511556555 |
| Long Tons | 0.04921032638 |
| Troy Ounces | 1,607.537328 |
| Daltons | 3.011070377×10²⁸ |
| Earth Masses | 8.372124175×10⁻²⁴ |
| Solar Masses | 2.51449607×10⁻²⁹ |
| Quintals | 0.5 |
| Grains | 771,617.9176 |
| Drams | 28,219.16956 |
| Hundredweight (US) | 1.102311311 |
| Hundredweight (UK) | 0.9842065276 |
| Quarters (UK) | 3.93682611 |
| Slugs | 3.426088293 |
| Troy Pounds | 133.961444 |
| Pennyweights | 32,150.74657 |
| Scruples | 38,580.89588 |
| Apothecaries' Drams | 12,860.29863 |
| Roman Pounds | 152.0218912 |
| Roman Ounces | 1,824.817518 |
| Attic Talents | 1.908688349 |
| Attic Minas | 114.521301 |
| Attic Drachmas | 11,452.1301 |
| Obols | 68,712.78058 |
| Shekels (biblical) | 4,347.826087 |
| Hebrew Talents | 1.736111111 |
| Monme | 13,333.33333 |
| Kin | 83.33333333 |
| Kan | 13.33333333 |
| Qian (Chinese) | 10,000 |
| Liang (Chinese) | 1,000 |
| Jin (Chinese) | 100 |
| Catties (Hong Kong) | 82.67334832 |
| Taels (Hong Kong) | 1,322.773573 |
| Tola | 4,286.766209 |
| Seers | 53.58457761 |
| Maunds | 1.33961444 |
| Zolotniks | 11,721.11998 |
| Funts | 122.0949998 |
| Poods | 3.052374994 |
| Libras (Castilian) | 108.6736812 |
| Arrobas (Spanish) | 4.346947248 |
| Arrobas (Brazilian) | 3.333333333 |
More Chinese units
- qian (Chinese) (weight & mass)
- liang (Chinese) (weight & mass)
- jin (Chinese) (weight & mass)
- catty (Hong Kong) (weight & mass)
- tael (Hong Kong) (weight & mass)
- fen (Chinese) (length)
- cun (Chinese) (length)
- chi (Chinese) (length)
- zhang (Chinese) (length)
- li (Chinese) (length)
- mu (Chinese) (area)
- qing (Chinese) (area)
- shichen (time)
- yi / oku (East Asian) (counting & quantity)
Browse all weight & mass units.