Kilograms to Qian (Chinese) (kg to qian)

1 kilogram equals 200 qian (Chinese) exactly.

1 kilogram = 200 qian (Chinese)

How to convert kilograms to qian (Chinese)

To convert kilograms to qian (Chinese), multiply the number of kilograms by 200. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply qian (Chinese) by 0.005.

qian (Chinese) = kilograms × 200

Example: 10 kilograms = 2,000 qian (Chinese).

About these units

Kilogram (kg)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI base unit of mass. Since 2019 it is defined by fixing the value of the Planck constant, replacing the old platinum-iridium cylinder in Paris.

Oddly for a base unit, the kilogram began life as a derived one. In 1793 revolutionary France defined the grave as the mass of one litre of water, and a decree of 1795 then replaced it with the kilogramme, a name built from the Greek khilioi (a thousand) and gramma, a Late Latin word for a small weight. In 1799 a platinum cylinder, the Kilogramme des Archives, became the physical standard, matching a cubic decimetre of water at its densest, around 4 degrees Celsius. In 1889 the metric community adopted a platinum-iridium cylinder made in 1879, the International Prototype of the Kilogram, nicknamed Le Grand K.

The kilogram is still the only SI base unit with a prefix in its name. Because SI forbids stacked prefixes, a millionth of a kilogram is a milligram rather than a microkilogram, so every mass prefix is attached to the gram. Calibrating every national standard against one object in a vault near Paris meant that all of them drifted relative to it, so in November 2018 member states voted to tie the kilogram to a fixed value of the Planck constant. The change took effect on 20 May 2019. Day to day nothing shifted, but the definition no longer depends on a single piece of metal.

The kilogram is the reference unit for weight & mass on this site.

Sources: NIST: Kilogram introduction (SI redefinition); Wikipedia: Kilogram

Qian (Chinese) (qian)

ChineseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Exactly 5 g in the modern Chinese market system; one tenth of a liang.

Sitting between the liang and the fen, the qian was the working unit for small quantities of silver, medicine and spice. Its character also named a coin, and the weight is closely tied to the old coinage. Traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions have long been written in qian, and a regulation from 1979 treated the medicinal qian as exactly 3 g so that doses could be converted cleanly to metric.

Its size depends on the jin that it divides. Under the Republic from 1930 the qian was 1/160 of a jin, which gives 3.125 g, and a 1915 law gave about 3.73 g. After the People's Republic redefined the liang as one tenth of a jin, the qian became one tenth of a liang, which is the figure used here: 5 g. Hong Kong and Macau use about 3.78 g, and Taiwan uses 3.75 g.

1 qian (Chinese) = 0.005 kilograms (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Jin (unit); Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement

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