The quintal or centner is a historical unit of

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different element ...

in many countries which is usually defined as 100 base units, such as

pound Pound or Pounds may refer to: Units * Pound (currency), a unit of currency * Pound sterling, the official currency of the United Kingdom * Pound (mass), a unit of mass * Pound (force), a unit of force * Rail pound, in rail profile Symbols * Po ...

s or

kilogram The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially ...

s. It is a traditional unit of weight in France, Portugal, and Spain and their former colonies. It is commonly used for

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit ( caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legu ...

prices in wholesale markets in Ethiopia and India, where 1 quintal = 100 kg. In

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

, it referred to the

hundredweight The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or quintal, is a British imperial and US customary unit of weight or mass. Its value differs between the US and British imperial systems. The two values are distin ...

; in

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

, it formerly referred to an uncommon measure of 100

kilograms The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially ...

. Languages drawing its cognate name for the weight from

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...

include French, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish , Italian , Esperanto , Polish . Languages taking their cognates from Germanicized ''centner'' include the German , Lithuanian , Swedish , Polish , Russian and Ukrainian (), Estonian and Spanish . Many European languages have come to translate both the

imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texas ...

and American

as their cognate form of ''quintal'' or ''centner''.

Name

The concept has resulted in two different series of masses: Those based on the local pound (which after

metrication Metrication or metrification is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. All over the world, countries have transitioned from local and traditional units of measurement to the metric system. This process began in F ...

was considered equivalent to half a kilogram), and those uprated to being based on the kilogram. In Albania (), Ethiopia (''kuntal''), and

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, the 100 kilogram definition may have been introduced via Islamic trade. It is a standard measurement of mass for agricultural products in those countries. In France it used to be defined as 100 (pounds), about 48.95 kg, and has been redefined as 100 kg (), thus called ''metric quintal'' with symbol ''qq''. In

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, the is still defined as 100 , or about 46 kg, but the ''metric quintal'' is also defined as 100 kg; In Portugal a quintal is 128 or about 58.75 kg. The German and the Danish are pound-based, and thus since metrication are defined as 50 kg, whereas the Austrian and Swiss since metrication has been re-defined as 100 kg. In Germany a measure of 100 kg is named a . Common agricultural units used in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

were the 100-kilogram () and the term "centner per

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

". These are still used by countries that were part of the Soviet Union.

English use

In English both terms ''quintal'' and ''centner'' were once alternative names for the

and thus defined either as 100 lb (exactly ) or as . Also, in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

it is about . The German was introduced to the English language via Hanseatic trade as a measure of the weight of certain

crops A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponi ...

including

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant '' Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to wh ...

for

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cer ...

production. Commonly used in the Dominion (and later province) of Newfoundland up until the 1960s as a measure for 112 lbs of salt cod. The quintal was defined in the United States in 1866 as 100 kilograms. However, it is no longer used in the United States or by

NIST The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sc ...

, though it still appears in the statute. In France, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Indonesia and in India, it is still in daily use by farmers. In

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and other South American countries, it is used under its alternative spelling of . It is also used in some African countries including

Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

References

{{reflist Units of mass Non-SI metric units Customary units of measurement Metricated units ur:قنطار

Name

English use

See also

References