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Mile



 
 


A mile is a unit
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
 of length
Length

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end....
, usually used to measure distance
Distance

Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, a period of time, or an estimation based on other criteria ....
, in a number of different systems. In contemporary English contexts, mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 5,280 feet (exactly 1,609.344 meters
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
) or the nautical mile of 1,852 meters (about 6,076.1 ft).






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mile
statute nautical
1.609344 km 1.852 km
1,609.344 m 1,852 m
1,760 yd 2,025.372 yd
5,280 ft 6,076.115 ft
63,360 in 72,913.4 in


A mile is a unit
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
 of length
Length

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end....
, usually used to measure distance
Distance

Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, a period of time, or an estimation based on other criteria ....
, in a number of different systems. In contemporary English contexts, mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 5,280 feet (exactly 1,609.344 meters
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
) or the nautical mile of 1,852 meters (about 6,076.1 ft). There are many other historical miles, and similar units in other systems translated as miles in English, varying between one and fifteen kilometers. It is about a third of the old measurement, a League.

There have been several abbreviations for mile (with and without trailing period): mi, ml, m, M. In the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Institute of Standards and Technology

The National Institute of Standards and Technology , known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards , is a measurement standards laboratory which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce....
 now uses and recommends mi but in everyday usage (at least in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
) usages such as miles per hour
Miles per hour

The mile per hour is a physical unit of speed, expressing the number of Mile covered per hour.It is currently the Unit of measurement used for speed limits, and speeds, on roads in the United Kingdom and United States....
 and miles per gallon
Miles per gallon

Miles per gallon is a standard unit of measure that measures how many miles a vehicle can travel on one gallon of fuel. It is used similarly in North America and the United Kingdom, although the U.S....
 are almost always abbreviated as mph or mpg (rather than mi/h or mi/gal).

The formula "multiply by 8 and divide by 5" to convert international miles to kilometers gives a conversion of 1.6, accurate to 0.6%, which is a useful approximation.

Roman mile

In Roman times, a unit of measuring distance was the pedes, meaning "going on foot" or "a foot soldier". Five pedes were equivalent to one passus. The unit of long distance (literally "a thousand paces" in Latin, with one pace being equal to two steps) was first used by the Romans
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 and denoted a distance of 1,000 paces or 5,000 Roman feet, and corresponded to about 1,479 meters, or 1,617 modern yards. This unit is now known as the Roman mile.

This unit spread throughout the Roman empire, often with modifications to fit local systems of measurements.

Statute mile


The statute mile is the distance typically meant when the word mile is used without other qualifying words, though in nautical, aviation, and polar exploration the nautical mile might be used without qualification.

The current definition of a mile as 5,280 feet (as opposed to 5,000) dates to the 13th century, and was confirmed by statute in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
; However, various English-speaking countries maintained independent length standards for the yard, which differed by small but measurable amounts, and thus led to miles of slightly different lengths. This was resolved in 1959 with the definition of the current international mile by Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
, Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
, South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The international mile being 5,280 feet is defined in terms of the international foot (0.3048 m), while the statute miles of the various English-speaking countries were based on the national foot of each country.

The name statute mile originates from a statute
Statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a country, state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy....
 of the Parliament of England
Parliament of England

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. Its roots can be traced back to the early medieval period. In a series of developments, it came increasingly to constrain the power of the King of England, and went on after the Act of Union 1707 to merge with the Parliament of Scotland and form the main basis of the Pa...
 in 1592 during the reign of Elizabeth I. This defined the statute mile as 5,280 ft or 1,760 yards; or 63,360 inch
Inch

An inch is the name of a Units of measurement of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units....
es. Both statute and international miles are divided into eight furlong
Furlong

A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and U.S. customary units. It is equal to one-eighth of a mile, 220 yards, 660 foot or 201.168 meters....
s. In turn a furlong is ten chains
Chain (unit)

A chain is a Units of measurement of length; it measures 66 foot or 22 yard or 100 Link . There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile....
; a chain is 22 yards and a yard is three feet, making up 5,280 ft.

A national statute mile still in limited use is the U.S. survey mile of 5,280 survey feet which is slightly longer at approximately 1,609.347219 meters (1 international mile is exactly 0.999998 survey mile). Thompson and Taylor of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Institute of Standards and Technology

The National Institute of Standards and Technology , known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards , is a measurement standards laboratory which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce....
 give many unit conversion factors, but for statute mile, only state "8 fur = 1 U.S. survey mile (also called 'statute mile') = 1 mi = 5280 ft" (in that section, abbreviations in italic type indicates the U.S. survey foot or U.S. survey mile). Nowhere in that publication is the name "statute mile" applied to the international mile.

Other miles in Britain and Ireland

Before the statute of the English parliament, there was confusion on the length of the "mile". The Irish mile was 6,720 feet and the Scottish mile was 5,951 feet. Perhaps the earliest tables of English linear measures, Arnold's Customs of London (c. 1500) indicates a mile consisted of 8 furlongs, each of 625 feet, for a total of 5,000 feet. For other "miles" see the list below.

Nautical mile


The nautical mile was originally defined as one minute
Minute

A minute is a unit of measurement of time or of angle.The minute is a Unit of measurement of time equal to 1/60th of an hour or 60 seconds. In the Coordinated Universal Time time scale, a minute occasionally has 59 or 61 seconds; see leap second....
 of arc
Arc (geometry)

In geometry, an arc is a closed set segment of a differentiable curve in the two-dimensional manifold; for example, a circular arc is a segment of the circumference of a circle....
 along a meridian
Meridian (geography)

A meridian is an imaginary arc on the Earth's surface from the North Pole to the South Pole that connects all locations running along it with a given longitude....
 of the Earth. It is a convenient reference since it is fairly constant at all latitudes, in contrast with degrees of longitude which vary from 1 NM at the equator to zero at the poles.

Navigators use dividers to step off the distance between two points on the navigational chart, then place the open dividers against the minutes-of-latitude scale at the edge of the chart, and read off the distance in nautical miles. Since it is now known that the Earth is not perfectly spherical but an oblate spheroid, the length derived from this method varies slightly from the equator to the poles. For instance, using the WGS84 Ellipsoid
World Geodetic System

The World Geodetic System is a standard for use in cartography, geodesy, and navigation. It comprises a standard Cartesian coordinates for the Earth, a standard spheroid reference surface for raw altitude data, and a gravitation equipotential surface that defines the "nominal sea level"....
, the commonly accepted Earth model for many purposes today, one minute of latitude at the WGS84 equator is 6,087 feet and at the poles is 6,067 feet. On average it is about 6,076 feet (about 1852 meters
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
 or 1.15 statute miles).

In the United States of America, the nautical mile was defined in the nineteenth century as 6,080.2 feet (1,853.249 m), whereas in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 the Admiralty nautical mile was defined as 6,080 feet (1,853.184 m) and was approximately one minute of latitude in the latitudes of the south of the UK. Other nations had different definitions of the nautical mile, but it is now internationally defined to be exactly 1,852 meters.

The nautical mile per hour is known as the knot
Knot (speed)

The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour. Its kn abbreviation is preferred by American and Canadian maritime authorities, and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; however, the kt and kts abbreviations also are used....
. Nautical miles and knots are almost universally used for aeronautical and maritime navigation because of their relationship with degrees and minutes of latitude and the convenience of using the latitude scale on a map for distance measuring.

Grid system


Cities
City

A city is an urban area with a high population density and a particular administrative, legal, or historical status.Large industrialized cities generally have advanced systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, house, and transportation and more....
 in the western United States often have street
Street

A street is a public thoroughfare in the built environment. It is a public parcel of landform adjoining buildings in an urban area context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about....
s laid out by miles. Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida

Miami is a global city in southeastern Florida, in the United States. Miami is the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, the most populous county in Florida....
, Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital and largest city in the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the fifth most populous city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,552,259 residents, and is the anchor of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area with 4,179,427 residents....
 and Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, Nevada, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and entertainment....
 are three examples. Typically the largest streets are about one mile apart, with others at half-mile, quarter-mile intervals. Also in Manhattan
Manhattan

Manhattan is one of the five borough of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.With a United States Census of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles , Manhattan, coextensive with New York County, is the most population density county in the United States, w...
 (New York) 'streets' are almost exactly 20 per mile, while 'avenues' are about six per mile.

Other miles

  • The Danish (traditional) was 24,000 Danish feet or 7532.5 meters. Sometimes it was interpreted as exactly 7.5 kilometers. It is the same as the north German (below).
  • The was a traditional unit in German speaking countries, much longer than a western European mile. It was 24,000 German feet; the SI equivalent was 7586 meters in Austria or 7532.5 meters in northern Germany. There was a version known as the which was 4 Admiralty nautical miles, 7,412.7 meters, or 1/15 degree.
  • In Norway and Sweden a mil is a unit of length which is equal to 10 kilometers and commonly used in everyday language. However in more formal situations, like on road signs and when there is risk of confusion with English miles, kilometers are used instead. The traditional Swedish spanned the range from 6000-14,485 meters, depending on province
    Provinces of Sweden

    The provinces of Sweden, landskap, are historical, geographical and cultural regions. Sweden has 25 provinces and they have no administrative function, but remain historical legacies and the means of cultural identification....
    . It was however standardized in 1649 to 36,000 Swedish feet, or 10.687 kilometers. The Norwegian was 11.298 kilometers. When the metric system was introduced in the Norwegian-Swedish union
    Union between Sweden and Norway

    The Union between Sweden and Norway , was the union of the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway between 1814 and 1905, when they were united under one monarch in a personal union, following the Treaty of Kiel, the declaration of Norway in 1814, a Swedish campaign against Norway , the Convention of Moss, on August 14, 1814, and the Norwegian constitu...
     in 1889, one standardized the to exactly 10 kilometers
  • The Russian was a traditional Russian unit of distance, equal to 7 verst, or 7.468 km
  • The (Croatian mile) is 11,130 metres = 11.13 kilometres = 1/10 of equator's degree., first time used by Jesuit Stjepan Glavac on map from 1673.
  • The (also called ) (mile of Croatian Ban
    Ban (title)

    Ban is a title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the 7th century and the 20th century....
    , Croatian mile) was 7586 metres=7.586 kilometres, or 24,000 feet..
  • The data mile
    Data mile

    In radar-related subjects and in JTIDS, a data mile is a unit of distance equal to 6000 foot , or 0.987 nautical miles. An international mile is exactly 0.88 of a data mile....
     is used in radar
    Radar

    Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
    -related subjects and is equal to 6,000 feet (1.8288 kilometers).
  • The radar mile is a unit of time (in the same way that the light year is a unit of distance), equal to the time required for a radar pulse to travel a distance of two miles (one mile each way). Thus, the radar statute mile is 10.8 µs and the radar nautical mile is 12.4 µs.
  • The term metric mile
    Metric mile

    Metric mile is a distance which approximates one statute mile at a round figure of metres . The term is most commonly used in track running and swimming....
     is used in sports such as athletics (track and field)
    Athletics (track and field)

    Track and field athletics, commonly known as athletics or track and field, is a collection of sports events that involve running, throwing and jumping....
     and speed skating
    Speed skating

    Speed skating or speedskating is a competition form of skating in which the competitors racing each other in travelling a certain distance on skating....
     to denote a distance of 1.5 kilometers. In United States high school competition the term is sometimes used for a race of 1.6 kilometers.


Idioms

Even in countries that have moved from the Imperial
Imperial unit

Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined and reduced....
 to the Metric system
Metric system

The metric system is an international decimalised systems of measurement, founded by France in 1791, that is the common system of Unit of measurement used by most of the world....
 (for example, Australia and New Zealand), the mile is still used in a variety of idioms. These include:
  • A country mile is used colloquially to denote a very long distance.
  • "A miss is as good as a mile" (failure by a narrow margin is no better than any other failure)
  • "Give him an inch and he'll take a mile" (the person in question will become greedy if shown generosity)
  • "Missed by a mile" (missed by a wide margin)
  • "Talk a mile a minute" (speak at a rapid rate)
  • "To go the extra mile" (to put in extra effort)
  • "Miles away" (lost in thought, or daydreaming)


See also

  • Anthropic units
    Anthropic units

    The ability to characterize, quantitative, and measurement objects in the physical world is an essential milestone towards the development of complex human civilizations....
  • Fibonacci sequence for miles converting to kilometers
  • Four-minute mile
    Four-minute mile

    In athletics , the four-minute mile is the running of a mile in less than four minutes. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister. The 'four minute barrier' has since been broken by many male athletes, and is now the standard of all professional Middle distance track event runners....
  • Geographical mile
    Geographical mile

    The geographical mile is a unit of length determined by 1 minute along the Earth's equator, approximately equal to 1855.325 metres . Any greater precision depends more on choice of standard than on more careful measurement: the length of the equator in the World Geodetic System WGS-84 is 40,075,016.6856 m which makes the geographical mile 1...
  • Imperial unit
    Imperial unit

    Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined and reduced....
    s
  • League
    League (unit)

    A league is a Units of measurement of length or area long common in Europe and Latin America, although no longer an official unit in any nation....
  • Roman mile
  • Scandinavian Mile
    Norwegian/Swedish mil

    A mil is a Units of measurement of length, usually used to measure geographic distance, fairly common in Norway and Sweden. Today, it measures by definition 10 kilometres, but earlier in history it had different values....
  • Square mile
    Square mile

    The square mile is an Imperial system and US customary system of measure for an area equal to the area of a square of one mile. It should not be confused with miles square, which refers to the number of miles on each side squared....
  • Systems of measurement
    Systems of measurement

    A system of measurement is a set of units which can be used to specify anything which can be measured and were historically important, regulated and defined because of trade and internal commerce....
  • U.S. customary units


External links