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Metrication is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. The United Kingdom, through voluntary and mandated laws, has metricated most of government, industry, commerce, and scientific research to the metric system; however, the previous measurement system (Imperial units) is still used in society. Imperial units as ...
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.
In 1965, the UK began an official programme of metrication, and as of 2025, in the United Kingdom the metric is the official measurement system for all regulated trading by weight or measure purposes, however imperial pint remains the sole legal unit for milk in returnable bottles and for draught beer and cider in British pubs.
The current international standard for the metric system is the International System of Units (Système international d'unités or SI). It is a system in which all units can be expressed in terms of seven units. The units that serve as the SI base units are the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela.
In the 1960s a metrication program was initiated in most English-speaking countries, resulting in either the partial or total displacement of the imperial system or the US customary system of measure in those countries. The current status of imperial and US customary units, as summarised by NIST, is that "the SI metric system is now the ...
The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French Système international d'unités), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. It is the only system of measurement with official status in nearly every country in the world, employed in science ...
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.
Where these units also had a standard, legally defined definition, such as given in a weights and measures act, this was known as the statute measure. [5] So a land area might be given as 24 acres—statute measure, to clarify that it was the acre defined in statute, rather than a customary acre of a different size, that was being used. [5]