Traditional Japanese units of measurement or the shakkanhō (, "''shaku–kan'' system") is the
traditional
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
system of measurement
A system of measurement is a collection of units of measurement and rules relating them to each other. Systems of measurement have historically been important, regulated and defined for the purposes of science and commerce. Systems of measurement i ...
used by the people of the
Japanese archipelago
The Japanese archipelago (Japanese: 日本列島, ''Nihon rettō'') is a archipelago, group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan, as well as the Russian island of Sakhalin. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to t ...
. It is largely based on the Chinese system, which spread to Japan and the rest of the
Sinosphere
The East Asian cultural sphere, also known as the Sinosphere, the Sinic world, the Sinitic world, the Chinese cultural sphere, the Chinese character sphere encompasses multiple countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically ...
in antiquity. It has remained mostly unaltered since the adoption of the measures of the
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
in 701. Following the 1868
Meiji Restoration
The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...
,
Imperial Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
adopted
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
the
metric system
The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...
and defined the traditional units in metric terms on the basis of a
prototype metre
The history of the metre starts with the Scientific Revolution that is considered to have begun with Nicolaus Copernicus's publication of ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' in 1543. Increasingly accurate measurements were required, and sc ...
and
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 ...
. The present values of most
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
and
Taiwanese units of measurement
Taiwanese units of measurement (Chinese: , Taiwanese Hokkien: Tâi-chè, Hakka: Thòi-chṳ, Mandarin: Táizhì) are the customary and traditional units of measure used in Taiwan. The Taiwanese units formed in the 1900s when Taiwan was under Japa ...
derive from these values as well.
For a time in the early 20th century, the traditional, metric, and English systems were all legal in Japan. Although commerce has since been legally restricted to using the metric system, the old system is still used in some instances. The old measures are common in
carpentry
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters tr ...
and
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, with tools such as
chisel
A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, stru ...
s, spatels, saws, and hammers manufactured in ''sun'' and ''bu'' sizes.
Floorspace
In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...
is expressed in terms of
tatami mat
A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Tatamis are made in standard sizes, twice as long as wide, about 0.9 m by 1.8 m depending on the region. In martial arts, tatami are the floor used for traini ...
s, and land is sold on the basis of price in ''tsubo''.
Sake
Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...
is sold in multiples of 1'' gō'', with the most common bottle sizes being 4 (720 mL) or 10 (1.8 L, ''isshōbin'').
History
Customary Japanese units are a local adaption of the traditional Chinese system, which was adopted at a very early date. They were imposed and adjusted at various times by local and imperial statutes. The details of the system have varied over time and location in Japan's history.
Japan signed the
Treaty of the Metre
The Metre Convention (french: link=no, Convention du Mètre), also known as the Treaty of the Metre, is an international treaty that was signed in Paris on 20 May 1875 by representatives of 17 nations (Argentina, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazi ...
in 1885, with its terms taking effect in 1886. It received its
prototype metre
The history of the metre starts with the Scientific Revolution that is considered to have begun with Nicolaus Copernicus's publication of ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' in 1543. Increasingly accurate measurements were required, and sc ...
and
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 ...
from the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry, ...
in 1890. The next year, a weights and measurements law codified the Japanese system, taking its fundamental units to be the ''shaku'' and ''kan'' and deriving the others from them. The law codified the values of the traditional and metric units in terms of one another, but retained the traditional units as the formal standard and metric values as secondary.
In 1909,
English units
English units are 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 ...
were also made legal within the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
. Following
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the
Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce
The was a cabinet-level ministry in the government of the Empire of Japan from 1881-1925. It was briefly recreated as the during World War II
History
The original Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce was created on April 7, 1881, initially under ...
established a Committee for Weights and Measures and Industrial Standards, part of whose remit was to investigate which of Japan's three legal systems should be adopted. Upon its advice, the Imperial Diet established the metric system as Japan's legal standard, effective 1 July 1924, with use of the other systems permitted as a transitional measure. The government and "leading industries" were to convert within the next decade, with others following in the decade after that..
Public education
State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...
—at the time compulsory through primary school—began to teach the metric system. Governmental agencies and the Japanese Weights and Measures Association undertook a gradual course of education and conversion but opposition became vehemently outspoken in the early 1930s.
Nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
s decried the "foreign" system as harmful to Japanese pride, language, and culture, as well as restrictive to international trade. In 1933, the government pushed the deadline for the conversion of the first group of industries to 1939; the rest of the country was given until 1954. Emboldened, the nationalists succeeded in having an Investigating Committee for Weights and Measures Systems established. In 1938, it advised that the government should continue to employ the "Shaku–Kan" system alongside the metric one. The next year, the imperial ordinance concerning the transition to the metric system was formally revised, indefinitely exempting real estate and historical objects and treasures from any need for metric conversion. The deadline for compulsory conversion in all other fields was moved back to 31 December 1958.
Following its defeat in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
US customary units
United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and U.S. territories since being standardized and adopted in 1832. The United States customary system (USCS or USC) developed from English units ...
. Gasoline was sold by the
gallon
The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use:
*the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as , which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Austral ...
and cloth by the yard.. The Diet revisited the nation's measurements and, with the occupation's approval, promulgated a Measurements Law in June 1951 that reaffirmed its intention to continue Japan's metrication, effective on the first day of 1959. An unofficial and ''ad hoc'' Metric System Promotion Committee was established by interested scholars, public servants, and businessmen in August 1955, undertaking a public awareness campaign and seeking to accomplish as much of the conversion ahead of schedule as possible. Its first success was the conversion of candy sales in Tokyo department stores from the ''momme'' to the gram in September 1956; others followed, with
NHK
, also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee.
NHK operates two terrestri ...
taking the lead in media use..
With the majority of the public now exposed to it since childhood, the metric system became the sole legal measurement system in most fields of Japanese life on 1 January 1959.. Redrafting of laws to use metric equivalents had already been accomplished, but conversion of the land registries required until 31 March 1966 to complete. Industry transitioned gradually at its own expense, with compliance sometimes being nominal, as in the case of screws becoming " screws".. Since the original fines for noncompliance were around $140 and governmental agencies mostly preferred to wait for voluntary conversion, metric use by December 1959 was estimated at only 85%.. Since research showed that individual Japanese did not intend to actually use the metric units when given other options, however, sale and verification of devices marked with non-metric units (such as rulers and tape measures noting ''shaku'' and ''sun'') were criminalised after 1961.
Some use of the traditional units continues. Some Japanese describe their weight in terms of ''kan''. Homes continue to be reckoned in terms of ''tsubo'', even on the national census as late as 2005, although the practice was discontinued in 2010.
English unit
English units are 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 ...
s continue to be employed in aviation,
munitions
Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weap ...
, and various sports, including
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
and
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
.
Length
The base unit of Japanese length is the ''shaku'' based upon the Chinese ''
chi
Chi or CHI may refer to:
Greek
*Chi (letter), the Greek letter (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ);
Chinese
*Chi (length), ''Chi'' (length) (尺), a traditional unit of length, about ⅓ meter
*Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon
*Chi (surname) (池, pin ...
'', with other units derived from it and changing over time based on its dimensions. The ''chi'' was originally a
span
Span may refer to:
Science, technology and engineering
* Span (unit), the width of a human hand
* Span (engineering), a section between two intermediate supports
* Wingspan, the distance between the wingtips of a bird or aircraft
* Sorbitan ester ...
taken from the end of the thumb to the tip of an outstretched middle finger, but which gradually increased in length to about , just a few centimeters longer than the size of a
foot
The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
.
As in China and Korea, Japan employed different ''shaku'' for different purposes. The "carpentry" ''shaku'' (, ''kanejaku'') was used for construction. It was a little longer in the 19th century prior to its metric redefinition. The "cloth" or "whale" ''shaku'' (, ''kujirajaku''), named for tailors' and fabric merchants'
baleen
Baleen is a filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales. To use baleen, the whale first opens its mouth underwater to take in water. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and ...
rulers, was longer and used in measuring cloth. (A longer unit of about 25cloth ''shaku'' was the ''tan''.)
Traditional Japanese clothing
There are typically two types of clothing worn in Japan: traditional clothing known as , including the national dress of Japan, the kimono, and , which encompasses all else not recognised as either national dress or the dress of another country.
...
was reckoned using the "traditional clothing" ''shaku'' (, ''gofukujaku''), about longer than the carpentry ''shaku''. The
Shōsōin
The is the treasure house of Tōdai-ji Temple in Nara, Japan. The building is in the ''azekura'' ( log-cabin) style with a raised floor. It lies to the northwest of the Great Buddha Hall. The Shōsō-in houses artifacts connected to Emperor Shō ...
in
Nara
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
has ivory 1-''shaku'' rulers, the .
The Japanese ri is now much longer than the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
or
Korean li
''Li'' (, ''lǐ'', or , ''shìlǐ''), also known as the Chinese mile, is a traditional Chinese unit of distance. The li has varied considerably over time but was usually about one third of an English mile and now has a standardized length of ...
, comprising 36 ''chō'', 2160 ''ken'',. or 12,960''shaku''. A still longer unit was formerly standard in
Ise Ise may refer to:
Places
*Ise, Mie, a city in Japan
**Ise Grand Shrine, a Shinto shrine located in Ise, Mie
*Ise Ekiti, a city in Nigeria
*Ise, Norway, a village in Norway
*Ise Province, an ancient province of Japan
*River Ise, a tributary of the R ...
on
Honshu
, historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...
Kyushu
is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...
, which comprised 50 ''chō'', 3000 ''ken'', or 18,000''shaku''. The
imperial nautical mile
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today t ...
of 6080
feet
The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
(1853.19m) was also formerly used by the Japanese in maritime contexts as a "marine ri".. A fourth and shorter ri of about 600m is still evident in some beach names. The "99-Ri" beach at Kujukuri is about 60 km. The "7-Ri" beach at Shichiri is 4.2 km long.
The traditional units are still used for construction materials in Japan. For example, plywood is usually manufactured in (about ) sheets known in the trade as , or 3 × 6 ''shaku''. Each sheet is about the size of one
tatami
A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Tatamis are made in standard sizes, twice as long as wide, about 0.9 m by 1.8 m depending on the region. In martial arts, tatami are the floor used for traini ...
mat. The thicknesses of the sheets, however, are usually measured in millimetres. The names of these units also live in the name of the bamboo flute , literally "shaku eight", which measures one ''shaku'' and eight ''sun'', and the Japanese version of the Tom Thumb story, , literally "one ''sun'' boy", as well as in many
Japanese proverbs
A may take the form of:
*a ,
*an , or
*a .
Although "proverb" and "saying" are practically synonymous, the same cannot be said about "idiomatic phrase" and "four-character idiom". Not all ''kan'yōku'' and ''yojijukugo'' are proverbial. For in ...
.
Area
The base unit of Japanese area is the ''
tsubo
A ''pyeong'' (abbreviationpy) is a Korean unit of area and floorspace, equal to a square '' kan'' or 36square Korean feet. The ''ping'' and ''tsubo'' are its equivalent Taiwanese and Japanese units, similarly based on a square '' bu'' ( ja:步) ...
'', equivalent to a square
ken
Ken or KEN may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer.
* ''Ken'' (film), 1964 Japanese film.
* ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine.
* Ken Masters, a main character in t ...
or 36 square ''shaku''. It is twice the size of the ''jō'', the area of the Nagoya
tatami
A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Tatamis are made in standard sizes, twice as long as wide, about 0.9 m by 1.8 m depending on the region. In martial arts, tatami are the floor used for traini ...
mat. Both units are used informally in discussing real estate
floorspace
In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...
. Due to historical connections, the tsubo is still used as the official base unit of area in Taiwan.
In agricultural contexts, the ''tsubo'' is known as the ''bu''. The larger units remain in common use by Japanese farmers when discussing the sizes of fields.
Volume
The base unit of Japanese volume is the ''shō'', although the '' gō'' now sees more use since it is reckoned as the appropriate size of a serving of rice or
sake
Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...
. Sake bottles are now marketed as containing 1800mL exactly.
The ''
koku
The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...
'' is historically important: since it was reckoned as the amount of rice necessary to feed a person for a single year, it was used to compute agricultural output and official salaries. The ''koku'' of rice was sometimes reckoned as 3000"sacks". By the 1940s the shipping ''koku'' was of the
shipping ton A shipping ton, freight ton, measurement ton or ocean ton is a measure of volume used for shipments of freight in large vehicles, trains or ships. In the USA, it is equivalent to while in the UK it is . It should not be confused with other types o ...
of 40 or 42cuft (i.e., ); the ''koku'' of timber was about 10cuft (); and the ''koku'' of fish, like many modern
bushel
A bushel (abbreviation: bsh. or bu.) is an imperial and US customary unit of volume based upon an earlier measure of dry capacity. The old bushel is equal to 2 kennings (obsolete), 4 pecks, or 8 dry gallons, and was used mostly for agricult ...
s, was no longer reckoned by volume but computed by weight (40''kan''). The ''shakujime'' of timber was about 12cuft () and the ''taba'' about 108ft³ ( or ).
Mass
The base unit of Japanese mass is the ''kan'', although the ''momme'' is more common. It is a recognised unit in the international pearl industry. In English-speaking countries, momme is typically abbreviated as ''mo''.
The Japanese form of the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
ryō
The was a gold currency unit in the shakkanhō system in pre- Meiji Japan. It was eventually replaced with a system based on the ''yen''.
Origins
The ''ryō'' was originally a unit of weight from China, the ''tael.'' It came into use in Japan ...
'' (). It was customarily reckoned as around 4 or 10 momme but, because of its importance as a fundamental unit of the silver and gold
bullion
Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from t ...
used as
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general def ...
in medieval Japan, it varied over time and location from those notional values.
Imperial units
Imperial units
The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial 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 thro ...
are sometimes used in Japan. Feet and inches are used for most non-sport bicycles, whose tyre sizes follow a British system; for sizes of
magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...
and many pieces of computer hardware; for photograph sizes; and for the sizes of electronic displays for electronic devices. Photographic prints, however, are usually rounded to the nearest millimetre and screens are not ''described'' in terms of inches but "type" (, ''gata''). For instance, a television whose screen has a 17-inch diagonal is described as a "17-type" () and one with a 32-inch
widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
screen is called a "32-vista-type" ().
See also
*
Japanese numerals
The Japanese numerals are the number names used in Japanese. In writing, they are the same as the Chinese numerals, and large numbers follow the Chinese style of grouping by 10,000. Two pronunciations are used: the Sino-Japanese (on'yomi) readings ...
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general def ...
, &
clocks
A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...
*
Heavenly Stems
The ten Heavenly Stems or Celestial Stems () are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, c. 1250 BC, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family mem ...
&
Earthly Branches
The twelve Earthly Branches or Terrestrial Branches are a Chinese ordering system used throughout East Asia in various contexts, including its ancient dating system, astrological traditions, zodiac and ordinals.
Origin
This system was built ...
*
Units
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (alb ...
,
Systems
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...
, &
History of measurement
The earliest recorded systems of weights and measures originate in the 3rd or 4th millennium BC. Even the very earliest civilizations needed measurement for purposes of agriculture, construction and trade. Early standard units might only have ap ...
*
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
,
Taiwanese
Taiwanese may refer to:
* Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien
* Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa)
* Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan
* Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan
* Taiwanese people, ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
, &
Vietnamese units of measurement Vietnamese units of measurement ( vi, hệ đo lường Việt Nam) are the largely decimal units of measurement traditionally used in Vietnam until metrication. The base unit of length is the ''thước'' (chữ Nôm: 𡱩; lit. "ruler") or ''xích ...
*
Metric system
The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...
&
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 ...
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
* .
* , reprinted by the Louisiana State University Press at Baton Rouge in 1991.
* .
* .
* .
* .
Units
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (alb ...
Units
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (alb ...
Units
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (alb ...