The Paris point is a unit of length

Unit of length

Many different units of length have been used across the world. The main units in modern use are U.S. customary units in the United States and the Metric system elsewhere. British Imperial units are still used for some purposes in the United Kingdom and some other countries...

 defined as ⅔ of a centimetre

Centimetre

A centimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one hundredth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length. Centi is the SI prefix for a factor of . Hence a centimetre can be written as or — meaning or respectively...

 (6. mm or ~0.26 in). It is commonly used as shoe sizes in Continental Europe.
Its origin probably lies in 2/3 of a centimeter being very close to a quarter of an inch ; a french inch "pouce-roi" is around 27mm, a quarter of that is 6.7mm, close to 6. mm defined for the paris point.

See also

• Point (disambiguation)
• barleycorn
  English unit
  English units are the historical units of measurement used in England up to 1824, which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units...
  
  , used in the English shoe sizing system.