Pounds to Dan (Chinese) (lb to dan)
1 pound equals 0.0090718474 dan (Chinese) exactly.
How to convert pounds to dan (Chinese)
To convert pounds to dan (Chinese), multiply the number of pounds by 0.0090718474. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply dan (Chinese) by 110.2311311 (rounded).
dan (Chinese) = pounds × 0.0090718474
Example: 10 pounds = 0.090718474 dan (Chinese).
About these units
Pound (lb)
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)
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.
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.
1 dan (Chinese) = 50 kilograms (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement; Wikipedia: Picul; Wikipedia: Catty
Related conversions
- Dan (Chinese) to pounds (reverse)
- Pounds to kilograms
- Pounds to grams
- Pounds to metric tons
- Pounds to ounces
- Pounds to milligrams
- Pounds to micrograms
- Pounds to carats
- Pounds to stone
- Pounds to short tons
- Pounds to long tons
- Pounds to troy ounces
- Pounds to daltons
- Kilograms to dan (Chinese)
- Grams to dan (Chinese)
- Metric tons to dan (Chinese)
- Ounces to dan (Chinese)
See all weight & mass units.