Taiwanese units of measurement are the customary and traditional
units of measureA measurement unit is a scalar quantity, defined and adopted by convention, with which any other quantity of the same kind can be compared to express the ratio of the two quantities as a number....
used in
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
. Many of the units derive from
Japanese units of measurement' is the traditional Japanese system of measurement. The name shakkanhō originates from the name of two of the units, the shaku, a unit of length, and the kan, a mass measurement.The system is Chinese in origin...
and have similar names as
Chinese units of measurementChinese units of measurement are the customary and traditional units of measure used in the China. In People's Republic of China, the units were re-standardised during the late twentieth century to make them approximate SI units. Many of the units were formerly based on the number 16 instead of 10...
but different conversions than in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
or
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
. In some cases these units are used exclusively, in some cases alongside official
metric (SI)The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system devised around the convenience of the number ten. It is the world's most widely used system of measurement, both in everyday commerce and in science.The older metric system included several groups...
units, and in other cases they have been supplanted by metric units.
LinguisticallyLinguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...
, practically all Taiwanese units of measure are Chinese classifiers used to
classifyA classifier, in linguistics, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify a noun according to its meaning.Classifier systems should not be confused with noun classes, which often categorize nouns in ways independent from meaning, such as according to morphology.-Definition and...
nouns.
Length
Linear measure in Taiwan is largely metric but some units derived from traditional
Japanese units of measurement' is the traditional Japanese system of measurement. The name shakkanhō originates from the name of two of the units, the shaku, a unit of length, and the kan, a mass measurement.The system is Chinese in origin...
remain in use.
- 1 chhioh (shaku, foot) = 10 chhùn (inches) = 0.3030 meters
Area
Unlike with other measures, area continues to be almost exclusively measured with traditional rather than SI units. Taiwanese units of
land measurementLand measurement is the general concept describing the application and theory of measurement of land. Land measurement is an integral quantitative element of Surveying....
derive from both traditional
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
and
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese measurements. The principal unit of land measure, the
kah, derives from the obsolete Dutch unit
morgenA morgen was a unit of measurement of land in Germany, the Netherlands and the Dutch colonies, including South Africa and taiwan . The size of a morgen varies from 1/2 to 2 1/2 acres, which equals approximately 0.202 to 1.012 ha...
which was introduced in Taiwan's era of Dutch colonization; or from the Dutch word for "field",
akker. The
lê represented the area that could be farmed by one man with one ox and one plow in one day. The principal unit for measuring the floorspace of an office or apartment, the
phêng (ping), like the
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
n
pyeong, derives from the Japanese
tsuboJapanese words have the following meanings:*pressure point in the context of traditional medicine*a Japanese unit of measure*Cooking pot or a similar vessel...
, and is the size of one sleeping (tatami) mat.
- 1 kah = 5 lê = 2934 phêng = 9700 square meters
- 1 lê = 587 phêng = 1940 square meters
- 1 bó· = 30 phêng = 99.3 square meters
- 1 phêng = 3.306 square meters
Mass
Packaged goods in Taiwan largely use metric measurements but bulk foodstuffs sold in
wet marketA wet market is generally an open food market. Some of the common names include "Cultural Markets", "traditional markets", "Gaai Si", "Gaai See".-Terminology:...
s and
supermarketA supermarket, also called a grocery store in some parts of North America, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
s are typically measured with units derived from traditional
Japanese units of measurement' is the traditional Japanese system of measurement. The name shakkanhō originates from the name of two of the units, the shaku, a unit of length, and the kan, a mass measurement.The system is Chinese in origin...
.
- 1 tael
Tael can refer to any one of several weight measures of the Far East. Most commonly, it refers to the Chinese tael , a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency . There were many different weighting standards of tael depending on the region or type of trade. In general the silver tael...
= 10 maceA mace is a traditional Chinese measurement of weight in East Asia that was also used as a currency denomination. It is equal to 10 candareens and is 1/10 of a tael or approximately 3.78 grams. A troy candareen is approximately 3.74 grams. In Hong Kong, one mace is 3.779936375 gramme. and in...
= 100 candareenA candareen is a traditional measurement of weight in East Asia. It is equal to 10 cash and is 1/10 of a mace. It is approximately 378 milligrams. A troy candareen is approximately 374 milligrams....
s = 1,000 cashCash refers to money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.In bookkeeping and finance, "cash" refers to current assets comprised of currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immediately .Cash is a prompt or instant payment for goods and...
= 37.5 gramThe gram , ; symbol g, is a unit of mass.Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice" , a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram, or...
s
- 1 catty
Catty is the English word for a traditional Chinese unit of mass called a jīn in Mandarin Chinese used across East Asia. The English word catty originated from the Malay word kati...
= 16 taels = 600 gramThe gram , ; symbol g, is a unit of mass.Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice" , a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram, or...
s
- 1 picul
Picul is the English word for a traditional Chinese measurement of weight called dàn in Mandarin Chinese or tam in Cantonese language....
= 100 catties = 60 kg
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