Long Tons to Pounds (ton (UK) to lb)

1 long ton equals 2,240 pounds exactly.

1 long ton = 2,240 pounds

How to convert long tons to pounds

To convert long tons to pounds, multiply the number of long tons by 2,240. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply pounds by 0.0004464285714 (rounded).

pounds = long tons × 2,240

Example: 10 long tons = 22,400 pounds.

About these units

Long Ton (ton (UK))

Imperial (British)Current unit

2,240 pounds (1,016.05 kg), the imperial or UK ton. Also used for ship displacement.

Before the 15th century an English ton was 2,160 pounds, twenty hundredweight of 108 pounds. Nineteenth-century British definitions included 2,240, 2,352 and 2,400 pounds, though the legal ton was usually 2,240 lb, which is twenty hundredweight of 112 lb. Industry bent the rules: in the 17th and 18th century iron trade, workers were given a 2,240 lb ton of raw material but were expected to return a 2,400 lb ton of processed iron, allowing for waste, and some coal mines delivered long tons but paid miners for a shorter one, which the miners saw as unfair.

The long ton, about 1,016 kg, is within 2 percent of the metric tonne, which makes the two easy to mistake for each other. It is used in the UK, Ireland and most Commonwealth countries that followed the imperial system, although the tonne is now the legal trade unit in the UK, Canada and Australia. Ship displacement has traditionally been quoted in long tons, because a ship cannot be put on a scale and is instead measured by the weight of water it pushes aside. The 2,240 lb figure became the standard for ship design.

1 long ton = 1,016.046909 kilograms (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ton; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 (mass conversions)

Pound (lb)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

Exactly 0.45359237 kg, divided into 16 ounces. The standard unit of weight in the US and common in the UK.

Why is pound abbreviated lb? The answer is Roman. The English word comes from the Latin libra pondo, roughly the weight measured in libra, and the symbol keeps the first word. The Roman libra was divided into 12 unciae. The avoirdupois pound of 16 ounces came into general use around 1300 and was initially equal to 6,992 troy grains; under Elizabeth I it was redefined as 7,000 grains. The UK's Weights and Measures Act 1878 set the imperial standard pound as a platinum cylinder, and the troy pound was abolished for trade the following year.

Today the pound is defined from the kilogram. The International Yard and Pound Agreement of 1959 fixed it at exactly 0.45359237 kg, and the UK's Weights and Measures Act 1963 wrote the same figure into law. Pounds remain the everyday unit for body weight, groceries and shipping in the United States and are widely used in the UK. The word also survives in odd places: a six-pounder cannon was named for the weight of its shot, not its own.

1 pound = 0.45359237 kilograms (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Pound (mass); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 (mass conversions)

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