
In the US, feet and inches are commonly used to measure height, shorter distances, field length (sometimes in the form of yards), etc. While the United States is one of the few, if not only, countries in which the foot is still widely used, many countries used their own version of the foot prior to metrication, as evidenced by a fairly large list of obsolete feet measurements.Ĭurrent use: The foot is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for many everyday applications.

This resulted in the measurement of a foot varying between 250 mm and 335 mm in the past compared to the current definition of 304.8 mm. The various lengths were due to parts of the human body historically being used as a basis for units of length (such as the cubit, hand, span, digit, and many others, sometimes referred to as anthropic units). History/origin: Prior to standardization of units of measurement, and the definition of the foot currently in use, the measurement of the foot was used in many different systems including the Greek, Roman, English, Chinese, and French systems, varying in length between each. One foot contains 12 inches, and one yard is comprised of three feet. A foot was defined as exactly 0.3048 meters in 1959.

Footĭefinition: A foot (symbol: ft) is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement.

In 2019, the meter has been re-defined based on the changes made to the definition of a second. Prior to this definition, the meter was based on the length of a prototype meter bar. The relationship between the meter and the millimeter is constant however. The definition of the meter has changed over time, the current definition being based on the distance traveled by the speed of light in a given amount of time. It indicates one thousandth of the base unit, in this case the meter. History/origin: The milli- prefix is one of many metric prefixes.

It is defined in terms of the meter, as 1/1000 of a meter, or the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 000 of a second. Definition: A millimeter (symbol: mm) is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI).
