Foot
Length · Also called: pes
That is
30.48 cm
1 foot (imperial)
The other way round: 1 m is 3.2808 feet.
- Period: 1959 to today
- Region: the UK
What the unit was used for
The foot is twelve inches and a third of a yard, and it is the one English length with an obvious body origin, although the statute foot of 304.8 mm is noticeably longer than most adult feet.
Medieval England ran several feet side by side: Andrew Jones found a “forest foot” of 18 inches in the manorial records, which shows how far local practice drifted from any royal standard.
The foot only became fixed when the yard did, and it is now exactly 0.3048 m.
It is one of the four length units the UK still permits as a sole indication, for road traffic signs and speed, alongside the mile, the yard and the inch, and it is the unit in which aircraft altitude is quoted worldwide.
In the system
1 foot = 12 inches = one third of a yard