Liang (Chinese) to Kilograms (liang to kg)
1 liang (Chinese) equals 0.05 kilograms exactly.
How to convert liang (Chinese) to kilograms
To convert liang (Chinese) to kilograms, multiply the number of liang (Chinese) by 0.05. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilograms by 20.
kilograms = liang (Chinese) × 0.05
Example: 10 liang (Chinese) = 0.5 kilograms.
About these units
Liang (Chinese) (liang)
Exactly 50 g in the modern Chinese market system, called the tael in English; one tenth of the modern jin (it was a sixteenth of the old jin).
English speakers know this unit as the tael, a word that came through Portuguese from the Malay tahil, meaning weight. In China the liang measured gold, silver and medicines, and it doubled as a unit of money when a liang of silver served as a unit of account. Foreign trade at Canton and Hong Kong carried the term around the world, and the name is still used for bullion weights.
For most of Chinese history the liang was one sixteenth of a jin, which is why people still speak of half a jin being eight liang in older sources. The Republic kept that ratio from 1930 with a liang of 31.25 g, but the People's Republic changed it in 1959 to one tenth of a jin. The figure used here is that mainland value of 50 g. Hong Kong's tael is about 37.8 g, while Taiwan uses 37.5 g.
1 liang (Chinese) = 0.05 kilograms (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Tael; Wikipedia: Jin (unit); Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement
Kilogram (kg)
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
Related conversions
- Kilograms to liang (Chinese) (reverse)
- Liang (Chinese) to grams
- Liang (Chinese) to metric tons
- Liang (Chinese) to pounds
- Liang (Chinese) to ounces
- Grams to kilograms
- Metric tons to kilograms
- Pounds to kilograms
- Ounces to kilograms
- Milligrams to kilograms
- Micrograms to kilograms
- Carats to kilograms
- Stone to kilograms
- Short tons to kilograms
- Long tons to kilograms
- Troy ounces to kilograms
- Daltons to kilograms
See all weight & mass units.