Length Converter
Convert between meters, feet, inches, miles, and other length units.
About the Length Converter
The Length Converter turns a distance written in one unit into the same distance written in another — metres to feet, inches to centimetres, miles to kilometres, and twenty-two more units besides. Type a number, pick the two units, and the answer updates as you type. Nothing is sent to a server, so it works offline once the page has loaded.
How to convert metres to feet
The two units are tied together by an exact definition agreed in 1959: one international foot is exactly 0.3048 metres. Every other metre-to-foot figure follows from that one number, so there is no measurement error to worry about.
Worked example. A person 1.83 m tall is 1.83 ÷ 0.3048 = 6.004 ft, which is 6 ft 0 in to the nearest inch. Going the other way, a 10 ft ceiling is 10 × 0.3048 = 3.048 m.
Metres to feet conversion table
| Metres (m) | Feet (ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3.28084 |
| 2 | 6.56168 |
| 3 | 9.84252 |
| 5 | 16.4042 |
| 10 | 32.8084 |
| 20 | 65.6168 |
| 50 | 164.042 |
| 100 | 328.084 |
| 250 | 820.21 |
| 500 | 1,640.42 |
| 1,000 | 3,280.84 |
Other exact length factors
- 1 inch = 2.54 cm exactly, so 1 cm = 0.3937008 in.
- 1 mile = 1.609344 km exactly, so 1 km = 0.6213712 miles.
- 1 yard = 0.9144 m exactly, which is 3 ft.
- 1 US survey foot = 1200/3937 m = 0.30480061 m, about two parts per million longer than the international foot.
- 1 point = 0.3528 mm and 1 pica = 4.2333 mm, the units typesetting works in.
Real-world values
- A standard shipping container is 12.192 m long, which is exactly 40 ft.
- A marathon is 42.195 km, or 26.219 miles.
- Airliners cruise near 11,000 m, which crews announce as 36,089 ft.
- A sheet of US Letter paper is 11 in tall, which is exactly 27.94 cm.
- A nautical mile is exactly 1,852 m, originally one minute of latitude.
- Light covers one light-year, 9,460,730,472,580.8 km, in a year.
What is a metre?
The metre is the SI base unit of length. Since 1983 it has been defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, which ties it to the speed of light rather than to any physical bar. Every metric length unit on this page — from the femtometre to the petametre — is the metre scaled by a power of ten.
Units this converter supports
Twenty-five units in four families. Metric: femtometre, picometre, nanometre, micrometre, millimetre, centimetre, decimetre, metre, decametre, hectometre, kilometre, megametre, gigametre, terametre and petametre. Imperial and US customary: inch, foot, yard, mile, US survey foot and nautical mile. Typography: pica and point. Astronomy: light-year and parsec. Any unit converts to any other in either direction.
Frequently asked questions
How many feet are in a metre?
3.280840 feet. The exact relation is defined the other way round: one international foot is exactly 0.3048 m, agreed in 1959, so one metre is 1 divided by 0.3048 feet.
How do I convert inches to centimetres?
Multiply by exactly 2.54, because one inch is defined as 2.54 cm. Divide by 2.54 for the reverse. A 15-inch laptop screen is therefore 38.1 cm across the diagonal.
Why is the US survey foot a separate unit?
The US survey foot is 1200/3937 m, or 0.30480061 m, which is about two parts per million longer than the international foot. The difference is invisible on a desk but reaches roughly 3 cm over 10 km, so land surveys and state plane coordinates keep it separate.
Which units does this converter support?
Twenty-five, in four families. Metric from femtometre to petametre; imperial and US customary inch, foot, yard, mile, US survey foot and nautical mile; the typographic pica and point; and the astronomical light-year and parsec.
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