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The rod, perch, or pole (sometimes also lug) is a surveyor's tool [1] and unit of length of various historical definitions. In British imperial and US customary units, it is defined as 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 feet, equal to exactly 1 ⁄ 320 of a mile, or 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 yards (a quarter of a surveyor's chain), and is exactly 5.0292 meters.
A rood is also an obsolete British unit of linear measure between 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 and 24 feet (5.0–7.3 m). It is related to the German Rute and the Danish rode. [4] [5] The original OED of 1914 said this sense was "now only in local use, and varying from 6 to 8 yards" (or 18 to 24 ft, "Rood", II.7).
Also called a perch or pole: a measure used for surveying land and in architecture. The rod is the same length today as in Anglo-Saxon times, although its composition in terms of feet were changed by the Composition of Yards and Perches from 15 feet to 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 feet or 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 yards. The pole is commonly used as a measurement for ...
The National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly contended that customary area units are defined in terms of the square survey foot, not the square international foot, [17] but from 2023 it states that "although historically defined using the U.S. survey foot, the statute mile can be defined using either definition of the foot, as is ...
Most of the units of measure have been adapted in one way or another since the Norman Conquest (1066). The units of linear measure have changed the least – the yard (which replaced the ell) and the chain were measures derived in England. The foot used by craftsmen supplanted the longer foot used in agriculture.
A quarter chain, or 25 links, measures 16 feet 6 inches (5.03 m) and thus measures a rod (or pole). Ten chains measure a furlong and 80 chains measure a statute mile. [1] Gunter's chain reconciled two seemingly incompatible systems: the traditional English land measurements, based on the number four, and decimals based on the number 10.
The other units of length and mass, and all units of area, volume, and derived units such as density were derived from these two base units. Mesures usuelles (French for customary measures) were a system of measurement introduced as a compromise between the metric system and traditional measurements. It was used in France from 1812 to 1839.
Conversions between units in the metric system are defined by their prefixes (for example, 1 kilogram = 1000 grams, 1 milligram = 0.001 grams) and are thus not listed in this article. Exceptions are made if the unit is commonly known by another name (for example, 1 micron = 10 −6 metre).