History/origin: Originally, in 1793, the meter was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. This definition was slightly modified in 2019 to reflect changes in the definition of the second. The meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in 1/299 792 458 of a second. Meterĭefinition: A meter, or metre (symbol: m), is the base unit of length and distance in the International System of Units (SI). The international foot corresponds to human feet with shoe size 13 (UK), 14 (US male), 15.5 (US female), or 46 (EU). Feet are also commonly used to measure altitude (aviation) as well as elevation (such as that of a mountain). 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. Definition: A foot (symbol: ft) is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement.

Feet in meeter