Pounds to Kan (lb to kan)

1 pound equals 0.1209579653 kan (rounded).

1 pound = 0.1209579653 kan

How to convert pounds to kan

To convert pounds to kan, multiply the number of pounds by 0.1209579653. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kan by 8.267334832 (rounded).

kan = pounds × 0.1209579653

Example: 10 pounds = 1.209579653 kan.

About these units

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)

Kan (kan)

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

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

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.

1 kan = 3.75 kilograms (exactly).

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

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