, the
zero-mile marker of the
Roman road network, in the
Roman Forum Roman The
Roman mile (, "thousand paces";
m.p.; also and ) consisted of a thousand
paces as measured by every other step—as in the total distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1,000 times. The distance was indirectly standardised by
Agrippa's establishment of a standard
Roman foot in 29
BC, and the definition of a pace as 5 (Roman) feet. An Imperial Roman mile thus denoted 5,000
Roman feet.
Surveyors and specialised equipment such as the
decempeda and
dioptra then spread its use. In modern times, Agrippa's Imperial Roman mile was empirically estimated to have been about in length, slightly less than the of the modern international mile. In
Hellenic areas of the Empire, the Roman mile (, ) was used beside the native
Greek units as equivalent to 8
stadia of 600
Greek feet. The continued to be used as a Byzantine unit and was also used as the name of the
zero mile marker for the
Byzantine Empire, the
Milion, located at the head of the
Mese near
Hagia Sophia. The Roman mile spread throughout Europe, with its local variations giving rise to the different units. Also arising from the Roman mile is the
milestone. All roads radiated out from the
Roman Forum throughout the Empire – 50,000 (Roman) miles of stone-paved roads. At every mile was placed a shaped stone. Originally, these were
obelisks made from granite, marble, or whatever local stone was available. On these was carved a
Roman numeral, indicating the number of miles from the centre of Rome – the Forum. Hence, one can know how far one is from Rome.
Ptolemaic mile In the 2nd-century, Greco-Roman polymath,
Claudius Ptolemy, of
Alexandria (Egypt), in his
Almagest and
Geography, defined a mile as a geographic
arcminute of longitude, of the earth's circumference, equivalent to 1:60 of a degree of longitude, or 1:21,600 of the circumference. While his estimate of the circumference of the earth, and therefore the derived length of a
stade, and a mile, from third party observations, principally offered in non-normalised
stadion (600 Greek feet), Egyptian
schoinos, and Persian
parasang were erroneous. Ptolomy's assumptions of a customary
stade to be of a
Roman mile, of a
schoinos or
parasang, of an arc-minute, or ~185 metres, his
Geographical mile, is the basis of the current nautical mile, and was adopted by medieval Arab and European cartographers.
Arabic The
Arabic mile (, ), of 4,000
cubits, was not the common
Arabic unit of
length; instead,
Arabs and
Persians traditionally used the longer
parasang or "Arabic
league". Although the precise length of the Arabic mile remains disputed, due to the variability in cubit length, it was somewhere between 1.8 and 2.0 km; it is approximate to a 1.852 km
nautical or
geographical mile, and an approximation of 1
arcminute of
latitude measured directly north-and-south along a
meridian. The mile was used by
medieval Arab geographers and scientists.
Breslau The
Breslau mile, used in
Breslau, and from 1630 officially in all of
Silesia, is equal to 11,250
ells, or about 6,700 meters. The mile equaled the distance from the Piaskowa Gate all the way to Psie Pole (
Hundsfeld). By rolling a circle with a radius of 5 ells through
Piaskowa Island,
Ostrów Tumski and suburban tracts, passing eight bridges on the way, the standard Breslau mile was determined.
Croatian The
Croatian mile (), first devised by the
Jesuit Stjepan Glavač on a 1673 map, is the length of an arc of the equator subtended by ° or 11.13 km exactly. The previous Croatian mile, now known as the "
ban mile" (), had been the Austrian mile given above.
Danish Following its standardisation by
Ole Rømer in the late 17th century, the
Danish mile () was precisely equal to the
Prussian mile and likewise divided into 24,000 feet. These were sometimes treated as equivalent to 7.5 km. Earlier values had varied: the , for instance, had been 11.13 km.
Dutch . The scalebar is expressed in "Hours walking or common Flemish miles", and includes three actual scales: small, medium and big Flemish miles. The
Dutch mile () has had different definitions throughout history. One of the older definitions was 5,600
ells. But the length of an ell was not standardised, so that the length of a mile could range between 3,280 m and 4,280 m. In the sixteenth century, the Dutch had three different miles: small (), medium (), and large (). The Dutch mile had the historical definition of one hour's walking (), which was defined as 24 stadia, 3000 paces, or 15,000 Amsterdam or Rhineland feet (respectively 4,250 m or 4,710 m). The common Dutch mile was 32 stadia, 4,000 paces, or 20,000 feet (5,660 m or 6,280 m). The large mile was defined as 5000 paces. The common Dutch mile was preferred by mariners, equating with 15 to one degree of
latitude or one degree of
longitude on the
equator. This was originally based upon
Ptolemy's underestimate of the Earth's circumference. The ratio of 15 Dutch miles to a degree remained fixed while the length of the mile was changed as with improved calculations of the circumference of the Earth. In 1617,
Willebrord Snellius calculated a degree of the circumference of the Earth at 28,500 (within 3.5% of the actual value), which resulted in a Dutch mile of 1900 rods. By the mid-seventeenth century, map scales assigned 2000 rods to the common Dutch mile, which equalled around 7,535 m (reducing the discrepancy with latitude measurement to less than 2%). The metric system was introduced in the Netherlands in 1816, and the metric mile became a synonym for the kilometre, being exactly 1,000 m. Since 1870, the term was replaced by the equivalent . Today, the word is no longer used, except as part of certain proverbs and
compound terms like ().
English The "
old English mile" of the
medieval and
early modern periods varied but seems to have measured about 1.3
international miles (2.1 km). The old English mile varied over time and location within England. The old English mile has also been defined as 79,200 or 79,320 inches (1.25 or 1.2519 statute miles). The English long continued the Roman computations of the mile as 5,000 feet, 1,000
paces, or 8 longer divisions, which they equated with their "
furrow's length" or
furlong. The origins of English units are "extremely vague and uncertain", but seem to have been a combination of the
Roman system with native and Germanic systems both derived from multiples of the
barleycorn. Probably by the reign of
Edgar in the 10th century, the nominal
prototype physical standard of English length was an arm-length iron bar (a yardstick) held by the
king at
Winchester; the foot was then one-third of its length.
Henry I was said to have made a new standard in 1101 based on his own arm. Following the issuance of
Magna Carta in 1215, the
barons of
Parliament directed
John and his son to keep the
king's standard measure () and
weight at the
Exchequer, which thereafter verified local standards until its abolition in the 19th century. New
brass standards are known to have been constructed under
Henry VII and
Elizabeth I. Arnold's
Customs of London recorded a mile shorter than previous ones, coming to 0.947 international miles (5,000 feet) or 1.524 km.
English statute The English
statute mile was established by a
Weights and Measures Act of Parliament in 1593 during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I. The act on the
Composition of Yards and Perches had shortened the length of the foot and its associated measures, causing the two methods of determining the mile to diverge. Owing to the importance of the surveyor's
rod in deeds and
surveying undertaken under
Henry VIII, decreasing the length of the rod by would have amounted to a significant
tax increase. Parliament instead opted to maintain the mile of 8
furlongs (which were derived from the rod) and to increase the number of feet per mile from the old Roman value. The applicable passage of the statute reads: "A Mile shall contain eight Furlongs, every Furlong forty Poles, and every Pole shall contain sixteen Foot and half." The statute mile therefore contained 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards. The distance was not uniformly adopted.
Robert Morden had multiple scales on his 17th-century maps which included continuing local values: his map of
Hampshire, for example, bore two different "miles" with a ratio of and his map of
Dorset had three scales with a ratio of . In both cases, the traditional local units remained longer than the statute mile. The English statute mile was superseded in 1959 by the
international mile by international agreement.
German " The
German mile () was 24,000 German feet. The standardised
Austrian mile used in southern Germany and the
Austrian Empire was 7.586 km; the
Prussian mile used in northern Germany was 7.5325 km. The Germans also used a longer version of the
geographical mile.
Hungarian The
Hungarian mile ( or ) varied from 8.3790 km to 8.9374 km before being standardised as 8.3536 km.
Irish Bridge, erected . Distances are given in Irish miles. The
Irish mile ( or ) measured 2,240 yards: approximately 1.27 statute miles or 2.048 kilometres. It was used in Ireland from the
16th century plantations until the 19th century, with residual use into the 20th century. The units were based on "
English measure" but used a
linear perch measuring as opposed to the English
rod of . and is thus also known as the "geographical mile", although the
geographical mile is now a separate standard unit.
Japanese The
CJK Compatibility Unicode block contains square-format versions of Japanese names for measurement units as written in
katakana script. Among them, there is , after .
Ottoman The
Ottoman mile was 1,894.35 m, which was equal to 5,000 Ottoman foot. After 1933, the Ottoman mile was replaced with the modern Turkish mile (1,853.181 m).
Portuguese The
Portuguese mile () used in Portugal and Brazil was 2.0873 km prior to metrication.
Russian The
Russian mile ( or , ) was 7.468 km, divided into 7
versts.
Saxon The
Saxon post mile ( or , introduced on occasion of a survey of the Saxon roads in the 1700s, corresponded to 2,000 Dresden
rods, equivalent to 9.062 kilometres.
Old Scandinavian The
old Scandinavian miles (
Norse:
mil, , ) were a number of measurements of length used in Scandinavia prior to the adoption of the modern "
Scandinavian metric mile" (10 km) in the late 19th century. Before the
Renaissance, there were various regional miles in Scandinavia. In Sweden, the regional miles were eventually divided after province, so called (roughly "county miles"). Some noteworthy Swedish county miles are: •
Dala mile – •
Finnish mile () – around •
Småland mile – around •
Uppland mile – = 3,600
Swedish rods = 6,000
Swedish fathoms = 18,000
Swedish ells = 36,000
Swedish feet •
Västgöta mile – around •
Ångermanland mile – = 6,666
Swedish fathoms While
Denmark eventually adopted the
Prussian mile (see ), the Swedish kept their indigenous miles. In 1649 the Swedish government made the Uppland mile the de facto Swedish mile, or "unit mile" (), for all of Sweden, also called the "land mile" or "long mile". In
Finland, then part of
Sweden, their measurement (which is translated as "mile") then became equivalent to the Swedish "unit mile", which later carried over when Finland was ceded to the
Russian Empire in 1809. When Norway became part of Sweden in 1814, forming the
Union between Sweden and Norway, the Swedish standard for defining a "unit mile", 36,000 feet, was introduced to Norway, which, due to the Norwegian foot being slightly longer than the Swedish foot, then became slightly longer than in Sweden, making the "unit mile" in Norway. Upon metrification, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, decided to redefine their miles as , since they were all based on the old Swedish "unit mile", already close to the measurent. The modern
Scandinavian (metric) mile is still a unit of length common in
Norway and
Sweden, to a lesser extent in
Finland, but not
Denmark. The Scandinavians also had their own "
nautical mile", called "sea mile" (, , ), or the equivalent "sea-peninkulma" in Finnish (), equivalent to the German
geographical mile ( degrees of
latitude), around ; later, during metrification, standardized as .
Scots 's "
Royal Mile"—running from
the castle to
Holyrood Abbey—is roughly a Scots mile long. The
Scots mile was longer than the English mile, as mentioned by
Robert Burns in the first verse of his poem "
Tam o' Shanter". It comprised 8 (Scots) furlongs divided into 320
falls or faws (Scots
rods). It varied from place to place but the most accepted equivalencies are 1,976
Imperial yards (1.123
statute miles or 1.81 km). It was legally abolished three times: first by a 1685 act of the
Scottish Parliament, again by the 1707
Treaty of Union with England, and finally by the
Weights and Measures Act 1824. It had continued in use as a customary unit through the 18th century but had become obsolete by its final abolition.
Welsh The
Welsh mile ( or ) was 3 statute miles and 1,470 yards long (6.17 km). It comprised 9,000
paces (), each of 3
Welsh feet () of 9 inches (). (The Welsh inch is usually reckoned as equivalent to the English inch.) Along with other Welsh units, it was said to have been
codified under
Dyfnwal the Bald and Silent and
retained unchanged by
Hywel the Good. Along with other Welsh units, it was discontinued following the
conquest of
Wales by
Edward I of England in the 13th century. == International ==