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The former Weights and Measures office in Seven Sisters, London (590 Seven Sisters Road). The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial [1] or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed through a series of Weights and Measures Acts and amendments.
Countries using the metric (SI), imperial, and US customary systems as of 2019. The International System of Units, or SI, [1]: 123 is a decimal and metric system of units established in 1960 and periodically updated since then.
Imperial units were mostly used in the former British Empire and the British Commonwealth, but in all these countries they have been largely supplanted by the metric system. They are still used for some applications in the United Kingdom but have been mostly replaced by the metric system in commercial , scientific , and industrial applications.
The imperial system of units was developed and used in the United Kingdom and its empire beginning in 1824. The metric system has, to varying degrees, replaced the imperial system in the countries that once used it. Most of the units of measure have been adapted in one way or another since the Norman Conquest (1066).
English: Countries using the metric, US customary and imperial systems of units as of 2019. Only the USA uses the US customary system; Liberia, Samoa, Palau, Micronesia, and Marshall Islands use unknown (i.e. it is unclear which system they use) non-metric systems; it is impossible to clearly determine which system Myanmar uses; the UK and Canada use a mixture of imperial and metric systems.
The US customary system has one set of units for fluids and another set for dry goods. The imperial system has only one set defined independently of, and subdivided differently from, its US counterparts. By the end of the 18th century, various systems of volume measurement were in use throughout the British Empire.
While metric use is mandatory in some countries and voluntary in others, all countries have recognised and adopted the SI, albeit to different degrees, including the United States. As of 2011, ninety-five percent of the world's population live in countries where the metric system is the only legal system of measurement. [3]: p. 49, ch 2
The United States customary system developed from English units that were in use in the British Empire before the U.S. became an independent country. The United Kingdom's system of measures evolved by 1824 to create the imperial system (with imperial units ), which was officially adopted in 1826, changing the definitions of some of its units.