Length Converter
Convert between metric and imperial length units — mm, cm, m, km, inches, feet, yards and miles.
This calculator provides estimates only, for general information and entertainment purposes. It isn't professional advice — confirm anything important independently before relying on it.
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How this calculator works
This converter covers the length and distance units people search for most: millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres on the metric side; inches, feet, yards and miles on the imperial side.
All conversions go through metres as a common base — every unit above has a fixed, exact relationship to a metre (for example, 1 inch = 0.0254 metres exactly, by international agreement since 1959), so converting any unit to any other is just two multiplications.
Worked example: to convert 5 kilometres to miles, 5km × 1000 = 5000 metres, then 5000 ÷ 1609.344 ≈ 3.107 miles. For a shorter distance, a 180cm-tall person is 180 ÷ 2.54 ≈ 70.9 inches, or 5 feet 11 inches once you divide the inches by 12 and keep the remainder.
Australia uses metric units for almost everything — road signs in kilometres, height and building dimensions in centimetres and metres — but you'll still meet imperial units regularly: house frame timber and some hardware is sold in feet and inches, TV and monitor screen sizes are quoted in inches, and older recipes, tools or imported goods often use imperial measurements. This converter is built for exactly that kind of cross-reference, in either direction.
A common mistake is mixing up feet and metres when they're numerically close-ish (a 6-foot person is about 1.83m, not 6m), or forgetting that a "mile" here means the standard statute mile (1,609.344m) rather than a nautical mile (1,852m), which is a different, larger unit used at sea and in aviation.
Frequently asked questions
- How many inches are in a metre?
- 1 metre is exactly 39.3701 inches (1 metre ÷ 0.0254 metres per inch).
- Is the imperial-to-metric conversion exact?
- Yes — the inch, foot, yard and mile have been defined as exact fractions of a metre under international agreement since 1959, so these conversions have no rounding error beyond the display precision shown.
- Is a nautical mile the same as the mile in this converter?
- No — this converter uses the standard statute mile (1,609.344m), the one used for road distances. A nautical mile is 1,852m, used in shipping and aviation, and isn't one of the unit options here.
- How do I convert centimetres to feet and inches together?
- Convert to inches first (divide centimetres by 2.54), then divide the result by 12 to get whole feet, keeping the remainder as inches — for example, 180cm ≈ 70.9 inches, which is 5 feet (60 inches) plus 10.9 inches, so about 5'11".