Metric vs Imperial Height — How Height is Expressed Around the World
Height is one of the most commonly converted measurements between metric and imperial systems. In the United States, feet and inches remain the dominant format for everyday use. Most of the rest of the world, including Europe, uses centimetres or metres for official and everyday purposes.
One metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. One foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 metres — making the conversion between metres and feet completely exact. The conversion to inches follows: 1 metre = 39.3701 inches.
Common height references: 1.60 m = 5 ft 3 in; 1.70 m = 5 ft 7 in; 1.75 m = 5 ft 9 in; 1.80 m = 5 ft 11 in; 1.85 m = 6 ft 1 in; 2.00 m = 6 ft 7 in.
Formula
Convert metres to total inches: total inches = m × 39.3701. Then: feet = Math.floor(total inches ÷ 12); inches remainder = total inches mod 12. For decimal feet: ft = m × 3.28084.
Related Calculators
- Feet & Inches to Metres — Convert feet and inches to metres.
- Centimetres to Inches — Convert cm to inches and feet.
- Inches to Centimetres — Convert inches to cm and mm.