Kan

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

1,000 monme, exactly 3.75 kg. A traditional Japanese weight unit.

1 kan = 3.75 kilograms (exactly).

About the kan

Long before it was a weight, the kan was a way to carry money: roughly a thousand copper coins strung together through their square holes. In China a bundle of this kind was recognised as a currency unit, and the mass unit came afterward, based on what a thousand such coins weighed.

Japan inherited both ideas. The kan equals 1,000 monme, and Edo-period measures averaged about 3.736 kg, drifting a little above 3.75 kg in the late Edo period. The Weights and Measures Act of 1891 ended the variation by defining the kan as 15/4 kg, exactly 3.75 kg, about 8.27 pounds. That is the figure used here.

The 1891 act made the shaku and the kan the foundation of the national system. Metric became the legal standard in 1924 and the sole one from 1959, leaving the kan as a non-statutory unit whose trade use is penalised, though shaved-ice blocks are still sold as kan-me.

Sources: Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement; Japanese Wikipedia: Kan

Kan conversion chart

1 kan expressed in every other weight & mass unit:

More Japanese units

• monme (weight & mass)
• kin (weight & mass)
• sun (length)
• shaku (length)
• ken (length)
• jō (length)
• chō (length)
• ri (Japanese) (length)
• gō (volume)
• shō (volume)
• tō (volume)
• koku (volume)
• jō (tatami mat) (area)
• tsubo (area)
• se (area)
• tan (area)

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