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United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and most U.S. territories, since being standardized and adopted in 1832. 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 was overhauled in 1824 to create the imperial system, which was officially adopted in 1826, changing the definitions of some of its units. Consequently, while many U.S. units are essentially similar to their imperial counterparts, there are noticeable differences between the systems.
Typographic units are the units of measurement used in typography or typesetting. Traditional typometry units are different from familiar metric units because they were established in the early days of printing. Though most printing is digital now, the old terms and units have persisted.
A cable length or length of cable is a nautical unit of measure equal to one tenth of a nautical mile or approximately 100 fathoms. Owing to anachronisms and varying techniques of measurement, a cable length can be anywhere from 169 to 220 metres, depending on the standard used.
The svenska riksdaler was the name of a Swedish coin first minted in 1604. Between 1777 and 1873, it was the currency of Sweden. The daler, like the dollar, was named after the German Thaler. The similarly named Reichsthaler, rijksdaalder, and rigsdaler were used in Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands, and Denmark-Norway, respectively. Riksdaler is still used as a colloquial term for krona, Sweden's modern-day currency.
A verst is an obsolete Russian unit of length defined as 500 sazhen. This makes a verst equal to 1.0668 kilometres.
In typography, the point is the smallest unit of measure. It is used for measuring font size, leading, and other items on a printed page. The size of the point has varied throughout printing's history. Since the 18th century, the size of a point has been between 0.18 and 0.4 millimeters. Following the advent of desktop publishing in the 1980s and 1990s, digital printing has largely supplanted the letterpress printing and has established the desktop publishing (DTP) point as the de facto standard. The DTP point is defined as 1⁄72 of an inch (1/72 × 25.4 mm ≈ 0.353 mm) and, as with earlier American point sizes, is considered to be 1⁄12 of a pica.
A shoe size is an indication of the fitting size of a shoe for a person.
The following systems arose from earlier systems, and in many cases utilise parts of much older systems. For the most part they were used to varying degrees in the Middle Ages and surrounding time periods. Some of these systems found their way into later systems, such as the Imperial system and even SI.
An ell is a northwestern European unit of measurement, originally understood as a cubit. The word literally means "arm", and survives in the modern English word "elbow" (arm-bend). Later usage through the 19th century refers to several longer units, some of which are thought to derive from a "double ell".
A milliradian is an SI derived unit for angular measurement which is defined as a thousandth of a radian (0.001 radian). Milliradians are used in adjustment of firearm sights by adjusting the angle of the sight compared to the barrel. Milliradians are also used for comparing shot groupings, or to compare the difficulty of hitting different sized shooting targets at different distances. When using a scope with both mrad adjustment and a reticle with mrad markings, the shooter can use the reticle as a ruler to count the number of mrads a shot was off-target, which directly translates to the sight adjustment needed to hit the target with a follow-up shot. Optics with mrad markings in the reticle can also be used to make a range estimation of a known size target, or vice versa, to determine a target size if the distance is known, a practice called "milling".
The units of measurement in use in Denmark are currently part of the metric system. A variety of other historical weights and measures have been employed throughout the nation's history.
The obsolete Finnish units of measurement consist mostly of a variety of units traditionally used in Finland that are similar to those that were traditionally used in other countries and are still used in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The units of measurement of German-speaking countries consist of a variety of units, with varying local standard definitions. While many were made redundant with the introduction of the metric system, some of these units are still used in everyday speech and even in stores and on street markets as shorthand for similar amounts in the metric system. For example, some customers ask for one pound of something when they want 500 grams.
As in the case of the Danes, the Norwegians' earliest standards of measure can be derived from their ship burials. The 60-Norwegian-feet-long Kvalsund ship was built ca. 700 AD and differs from the Danish boats less than it does from the Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune ships which all date from ca. 800 AD. Thwarts are typically spaced about 3 Norwegian feet apart.
Traditional Japanese units of measurement or the shakkanhō (尺貫法) is the traditional system of measurement used by the people of the Japanese archipelago. It is largely based on the Chinese system, which spread to Japan and the rest of the Sinosphere in antiquity. It has remained mostly unaltered since the adoption of the measures of the Tang dynasty in 701. Following the 1868 Meiji Restoration, Imperial Japan adopted the metric system and defined the traditional units in metric terms on the basis of a prototype metre and kilogram. The present values of most Korean and Taiwanese units of measurement derive from these values as well.
A Scandinavian mile is a unit of length common in Norway and Sweden, to a lesser extent in Finland, but not Denmark. Today, it is standardised as 1 mil being 10 kilometres, but it had different values in the past.
The line was a small English unit of length, variously reckoned as 1⁄10, 1⁄12, 1⁄16, or 1⁄40 of an inch. It was not included among the units authorized as the British Imperial system in 1824.
Sweden decided to adopt the metric system in 1876. After a ten-year transition period starting 1879, the use of legacy units was outlawed by the beginning of 1889.
A number of different units of measurement have been used in Ethiopia. The values of most of these units are not well defined. In 1963, Ethiopia adopted the metric system.
A number of different units of measurement were historically used in Cyprus to measure quantities like length, mass, area and capacity. Before the Metric system, the Imperial system was used. In between 1986-1988, metric system was adopted in Cyprus.
References
- ↑ "Riksdagens protokoll 1875:54". May 19, 1875. p. 58. Retrieved November 15, 2019.