Length Converter

Convert between any length or distance units instantly.

3.280839895

Foot (ft)

1 m = 3.280839895 ft

1 m in all units

Kilometre (km)0.001
Centimetre (cm)100
Millimetre (mm)1000
Mile (mi)0.0006213711922
Yard (yd)1.093613298
Foot (ft)3.280839895
Inch (in)39.37007874
Nautical Mile (nmi)0.0005399568035
Micrometre (μm)1000000

About Length Converter

Convert between metres, kilometres, miles, feet, inches, yards, and nautical miles instantly. Select your starting unit from the dropdown, type a value, and every other unit updates simultaneously. All conversions use exact SI-defined and NIST-defined factors for full precision.

Unit reference

  • Metre (m) — the SI base unit of length. Defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
  • Kilometre (km) — 1,000 metres. Used for road distances in most countries.
  • Mile (mi) — exactly 1,609.344 metres. Used for road distances in the US, UK, and a few other countries.
  • Foot (ft) — exactly 0.3048 metres. Used in the US for height, altitude, and construction.
  • Inch (in) — exactly 25.4 millimetres. Used in the US and UK for small measurements, screen sizes, and paper sizes.
  • Yard (yd) — exactly 0.9144 metres. Used in American football field measurements and UK fabric sales.
  • Nautical mile (nmi) — exactly 1,852 metres. Defined as one minute of arc along a meridian. Used in aviation and maritime navigation.

About the Length Converter

A length converter translates between metric units (kilometre, metre, centimetre, millimetre) and imperial/US units (mile, yard, foot, inch). Conversions across systems are awkward to do mentally because the conversion factors are not round numbers — 1 inch is exactly 2.54 centimetres, by definition, but the implications for fractional lengths and chained conversions get messy quickly.

This converter handles every common length unit with bidirectional input: change any field and the others update instantly. The same value is therefore visible in every unit at once, which is useful when comparing specifications quoted in different systems.

Where the conversion factors come from

The international yard and pound were standardised in 1959 at 1 yard = 0.9144 metres exactly, fixing the inch at exactly 25.4 mm. The mile is exactly 1,609.344 metres. Within the metric system, every unit is a power of ten apart — 1 km = 1,000 m, 1 m = 100 cm, 1 cm = 10 mm. The painful conversions are always those that cross the system boundary.

When precision matters

For everyday tasks (shopping for fabric, measuring a room) rounding to two decimal places is plenty. For engineering or scientific work, retain enough precision in intermediate calculations to avoid rounding error in the final answer — converting metres to feet to inches and back loses precision quickly if you round at each step.

How to use the Length Converter

  1. Enter a value in any unit

    Type into the field whose unit you have — all other units recompute instantly.

  2. Read every conversion at once

    Metric and imperial values appear together for quick comparison.

Worked examples

Example 1

Input: 1 metre

Result: 3.281 ft · 1.094 yd · 39.37 in

A standard metric-to-imperial example.

Example 2

Input: 6 feet

Result: 1.829 m · 182.9 cm

Common human-height conversion.

Real-world use cases

  • Reading product dimensions quoted in unfamiliar units.
  • Translating recipe or DIY measurements between metric and imperial.
  • Working out travel distances when itinerary uses miles and locals use kilometres.
  • Converting drawing scales for architecture and woodworking projects.

Tips & common mistakes

  • For mental approximation, 1 metre ≈ 3.3 feet, 1 mile ≈ 1.6 km, 1 inch ≈ 2.5 cm. These get you within 5% without a calculator.
  • Track precision: rounding every step loses accuracy. Compute the conversion once at the end.
  • Be careful with "feet and inches" inputs — the tool treats them separately from decimal feet (5.5 ft = 5'6", not 5'5").

Frequently asked questions

How accurate are the conversions?

Exact for the standardised definitions of the units. Display precision is limited only by your chosen number of decimal places.

Does it support nautical miles?

Some converters include them; check the unit list on the page. A nautical mile is 1,852 metres exactly.

Why are inches and centimetres related by exactly 2.54?

The international yard and pound agreement of 1959 defined the inch as 25.4 mm exactly, by international treaty.

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Last updated: June 2026 · All processing happens locally in your browser.