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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.
The imperial and US customary measurement systems are both derived from an earlier English system of measurement which in turn can be traced back to Ancient Roman units of measurement, and Carolingian and Saxon units of measure. The US Customary system of units was developed and used in the United States after the American Revolution, based on ...
English units were the units of measurement used in England up to 1826 (when they were replaced by Imperial units), which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units. Various standards have applied to English units at different times, in different places, and for different applications.
The British imperial system uses a stone of 14 lb, a long hundredweight of 112 lb and a long ton of 2,240 lb. The stone is not a measurement of weight used in the US. The US customary system uses the short hundredweight of 100 lb and short ton of 2,000 lb. Where these systems most notably differ is in their units of volume.
The metric ton is the name used for the tonne (1000 kg, 2 204.622 62 lb), which is about 1.6% less than the long ton. The US customary system also includes the kip, equivalent to 1,000 pounds of force, which is also occasionally used as a unit of weight of 1,000 pounds (usually in engineering contexts).
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 International System of Units is the modern metric system. It is based on the metre–kilogram–second–ampere (MKSA) system of units from early in the 20th century. [21] It also includes numerous coherent derived units for common quantities like power (watt) and irradience (lumen).
United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and most U.S. territories, [1] since being standardized and adopted in 1832. [2] The United States customary system developed from English units that were in use in the British Empire before the U.S. became an