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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Mellifluousness

Poets and songwriters not only in English but also in many other European languages choose the mile, a length many of them never otherwise use, at the expense of the (in these countries) commonly used and understood kilometer. How many songs come to your mind featuring the mile? Many. How many with kilometers? None. People don't write songs about kilometers, but they sing alot about miles. Has no one notable ever mentioned this? In this sense, the mile is still by far the most popular such measurement in the world. Chrisrus (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Poppycock! Poets and singers are well known for their use of Metre. (Sorry couldnt resist) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.153.251.65 (talk) 11:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Step One: Quickly rattle off a bunch of songs poems that use the word "Mile(s)".
Step Two: Try to come up with one song that uses the word "Kilometer(s)"
Step Three: Return here and revise your "poppycock" statement. Chrisrus (talk) 14:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Whoosh! That's the sound of 82.153.251.65's joke flying over Chrisrus's head. If you don't get it, see metre (poetry).

Relatively trivial, but of some interest

It seems that converting one kilometer into feet and inches is not often done. It works out to 3,280 feet, 10+ inches, where [+] is some fraction of an inch. This surely doesn't belong in an article, though. Regards, Nikevich (talk) 06:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The initial table

Now that we have revised the opening paragraphs of the article, the wikitable near the beginning of the article is inconsistent with the text. One way of fixing this would be to replace it with something like this:

mile
international US survey nautical
1.609 344 km 1.609 347 km 1.852 km
1,609.344 m 1,609.347 m 1,852 m

Note that this doesn't go into yards, feet and inches because with two slightly different values for these measures it just becomes too complex. I've I've provided an estimate of the survey mile to the nearest millimetre.

If any more precision was required, the table could read like this:

mile
international US survey nautical
1.609 344 000 km 1.609 347 219 km 1.852 km
1,609.344 000 m 1,609.347 219 m 1,852 m

What do others think?


NIST Handbook 44, C-8, gives the SI equivalent as 1609.347, so I think that should be good enough. I would get rid of the commas to match the text and BIPM. Do we need notes for the reader who only looks at the table and is confused by “international mile” and “U.S. survey mile” are confusing? I’m not sure international mile gets much use outside the US (and outside of NIST, I don’t think it gets much use in the US, either). In the second paragraph of the lead, the meaning is quite clear, but it probably is less so in the table. Or should we just assume that a reader can glance at the lead to get the meaning?

I agree that getting into yards here would be too much of a mess. The lead gives the equivalents in yards and feet—is any more needed? If it’s felt necessary to cover other customary units such as the furlong, chain, and rod, that should be done in a separate table (I guess it would be a long one liner) that deals only with customary units, and perhaps includes a note about the different values for the yard. But these other units are covered pretty well in other articles, so I’m not sure we need them here. JeffConrad (talk) 06:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Suits me! I'll make that change. Michael Glass (talk) 12:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Chronological order

At the moment the article presents facts about the history of the mile out of chronological order. The most glaring example is the placement of the paragraph on the Roman mile! I think it would be better if the historical facts about the land mile were in chronological order. Here is my suggestion:

Roman mile
Other miles
Historical miles in Britain and Ireland
Statute mile

Then follow it with

Nautical mile

Any comments? Michael Glass (talk) 09:04, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the Roman mile should be higher up in the article - how about merging it into the section on the origin of the mile.
I think that we should have a new section "The English-speaking world" which would start off with the historic miles in Britain and Ireland then lead into the statute mile as a sub-section. We must of course remember that a number of other articles link into the title "Statue mile".
The next section could be a discussion of other historic miles, followed by a section on the nautical mile.
Martinvl (talk) 10:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
The next section could be the nautical mile

I have now changed the text around as proposed, changing just one heading so that it fitted in the new position. Otherwise the text is almost unchanged (unless I made a slip in editing). Please check, as there are things that will have to be changed. Michael Glass (talk) 15:29, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. {{Visible anchor}} should take care of the external linking. But there’s another consideration—statute mile has a current as well as historical context. In the former, it distinguished the mile of 5280 feet from the Roman mile of 5000 feet (and perhaps a few others). Current usage is mainly to distinguish the “land mile” of 5280 feet (whatever type) from the nautical mile, and from the international mile for older US survey data. Perhaps the historical and current uses should be in different sections/subsections, preferably with distinct titles. JeffConrad (talk) 21:55, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The term statute mile is a bit of a trap. In British usage it's just a fancy synonym for the mile but in American usage it becomes a bit ambiguous. Even though the official meaning is the US survey mile, more popular usage is not so precise. I think the terms international mile and US survey mile are more precise even though they are not as widely used as mile or statute mile. Michael Glass (talk) 08:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Does the US use the US Survey mile in common parlance?

Does the US use the US Survey mile in common parlance or when someone mentions a distance of miles are they referring to international miles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.209.25 (talk) 05:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

An old table

Back in 2010 I started to convert a table in

  • "Tafel zur Vergleichung und Bestimmung der Wegemaasse", Naturhistorische und chemischtechnische Notizen nach den neuesten Erfahrungen zur Nutzahwendung für Gewerbe, Fabrikwesen und Handwirthschaft, Expedition der Medicinischen Centralzeitung, 1856, pp. 320–326 {{citation}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) (Item notes: Sammlung5-6 (1856-57) Original from Harvard University Digitized 9 January 2008)

Using these other sources to help me.

I became distracted by other things and never finished it. I am placing it here as some of the information in it may be of use to someone contribution to this page.

-- PBS (talk) 16:55, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

League mesurements

I made an edit to this page with the comment "Moving the league information onto the talk page of the league (unit). The reason for this is that if someone wants information on miles then they do not need the table cluttered up with other measurements" It has been reverted with no comment. I look forward to reading an explanation for the revert. -- PBS (talk) 16:58, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

If you were a little patient, you might have had a chance to read this before making your own posting.
Separating "miles" from "leagues" is like unscrambling an egg. Over the centuries many countries have used words derived from either "mille" or "legua" to define distances of between 1 km and 10 km. (I choose these distances as the Dutch "metric mile" between 1817 and about 1861 was 1 km , while in the Nordic countries the local "mile" was 10 km.) For this reason I have reinstated those entries in the table that are derived from the word "legua". Martinvl (talk) 16:59, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Two sections merged: Martinvl (talk) 17:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
"between 1 km and 10 km" why those distances to scope measurement -- it seems arbitrary to me.
Over the years many counties have used different measurement for all sort of things mixing up leagues and miles in the same table makes no more sense than mixing up inches and feet or feet and yards. I measure horses in hands and I would not expect that measurement to appear in a list of different measurements of feet because it is a human appendage.
The major use for a table such as this is if one comes across a source that uses the distance that one can easily find a conversion. As in English there is a clear distinction between league and mile, anyone coming across the term league (or its equivalent in a foreign language) is going to look in the league (unit) article and for a mile in the mile article so mixing in league measurements into this article is less than helpful. -- PBS (talk) 17:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Having looked at the article League (unit), there might well be a case for both articles sharing a common table (written as a template). The article text would explain the overlap between the two. Any comments? Martinvl (talk) 20:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Shared templates are best avoided as section in articles for several reasons, but one important point is that they are confusing for many editors. Shared templates are usually restricted to navigation templates. Therefore I do not think it is desirable to create a common table. The logic of your suggestion implies that we should merge the two articles, which I do not think is a good idea -- it would be different if the English language did not have specific meanings for league and mile. -- PBS (talk) 09:19, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Origin of Mile, the Roman mile should be merged and Mile is not English, almost all countries had their mile, US is very slow and left behind

The beginning of this article is very confusing, and should be very strict abd clear. '=

The reason its confusing is that its incorrect. Talking about a modern English mile which has only existed since 1593 without establishing its history, its reasons for being changed, or discussing the miles of other nations which preserve some of the earlier medieval and ancient classical forms is the wrong place to begin. The table of comparison in the article is much more useful. Talking about it as derived of paces as a unit of length only without mentioning it also has divisions of furlongs, stadiums, stadions, plethrons and perch, feet, yards, fathoms, or that it has been treated in the form of a square mile as a unit of area, and also in the form of a nautical mile with an obvious connection to degrees of the Earths circumference is unencyclopedic.

Origin of Mile, the Roman mile

The word mile originally derives from the Latin mille passuum (one thousand paces), one thousand (double)steps of a Roman soldier; which derives from the Greek aroura or thousand of land referred to by Herodotus as an Egyptian unit equivalent to (one thousand orguia). The Egyptian unit would be in turn preceded by the mile of the Epic of Gilgamesh used to describe the area of a city.

The Romans were first to use the unit of long distance mille passuum (literally "a thousand paces" in Latin, where each pace was two steps). It denoted a distance of 1,000 paces or 5,000 Roman feet, and is estimated to be about 1,479 metres (1,617 yards). This unit, now known as the Roman mile,[6] spread throughout the Roman Empire, often with modifications to fit local systems of measurements."

National miles

Most countries had previous local miles and was used as a legal messure, for instance for coach fares and Mile stones were set up long the roads for the legally regulated coach payments (medeaval taxameters). Also certainly used for all other travellers too. The fares were regulated in different local legislation and so the miles were different.

Most countries decripated their use of miles when getting Metric, except the Scandinavian countries. Sweden, Norway and Finland that emended their old close to 10 km miles to excat 10 km. Great Britain was just late and is today metric except for road speed (mph) and bottlesizes (pints). The only English domination of the expression mile is that previously the British were (1980) and today US is late abandoning it. In US the metric system of km is refered to as military messures because they are standardised as NATO messures since the IIWW. Else the allied supply chain will be too heavy and expensive, and were a big problem during IIWW. In the US there is a long tradition of unwillingness to tell civilians what to do, so they go on with unstandardised messures to a huge cost. Most larger US manufacturers have already abaoned the nonstandard measures, like the car industry, and things like bolts and nuts. In the 70ies there were for instance identical Fords models manufactured in different countries with not a single part fitting inbetween, not even wiper blades. Quite an amsing experience for the owner getting spare parts.

Nautical Miles has nothing to do with Land Miles

The nautical mile was originally defined as one minute of arc along a meridian of the Earth, and has nothing to do with the Roman mile but the name.

The Greeks used 10 stadions of 185m for nautical miles and 8 stadions of 185 m for land miles.
Hipparchus, a Greek, living c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC, divided the Earth's circumference into 360 degrees creating a grid in which each degree could be measured on land or water in stadia, miles, or their subdivisions. He was the first Greek known to divide the circle in 360 degrees of 60 arc minutes (Eratosthenes before him used a simpler sexagesimal system dividing a circle into 60 parts)measuring distances with the Babylonian unit pechus, a cubit subdivision of the mile refered to in the Epic of Gilgamesh."Hipparchus' treatise "Against the Geography of Eratosthenes" in three books is not preserved.[31] Most of our knowledge of it comes from Strabo. Hipparchus thoroughly and often unfairly criticized Eratosthenes mainly for internal contradictions and inaccuracy in determining positions of geographical localities. Hipparchus insists that a geographic map must be based only on astronomical measurements of latitudes and longitudes and triangulation for finding unknown distances. In geographic theory and methods Hipparchus introduced three main innovations.[32] He was the first to use the grade grid, to determine geographic latitude from star observations, and not only from the sun’s altitude, a method known long before him, and to suggest that geographic longitude could be determined by means of simultaneous observations of lunar eclipses in distant places."
"The nautical mile (symbol M, NM or nmi) is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude measured along any meridian, or about one minute of arc of longitude at the equator (both at sea level). By international agreement it has been set at 1,852 metres exactly (about 6,076 feet)." 12.187.95.196 (talk) 10:21, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

m AND km

Why are 3 different miles defined in meters and kilometers in the box? This is redundant. I suggest to remove one of the 2 lines. --Wilhelm-Conrad (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The reason for three different miles is that there are three of them: two slightly different land miles and the nautical mile. I agree that the difference between the International Mile and the US Survey mile is small, but it is still appreciable. 3.219mm in a mile adds up. The difference in 8 miles is just over an inch, in 95 miles it is just over a foot, in 285 miles it's just over a yard and in 311 miles it's just over 1 metre. In 1000 miles the difference is 3.219 metres or more than 10 feet 6 inches.
To make this clearer I changed the scale in the box from kilometres to metres per WP:BOLD. This makes the comparison between the two different miles clearer but it makes the difference between the mile and the kilometre less obvious. Please feel free to discuss or revert and discuss if you feel differently about it. Michael Glass (talk) 13:22, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The mile in Canada

It's quite a stretch to claim that Canada uses the mile. Yes, you can find some very obscure sectors of the economy still using it but the mile is COMPLETELY absent from daily life and 95% of economic activity.

Speed limits are EXCLUSIVELY posted in kilometers per hour, distances are EXCLUSIVELY posted in kilometers and in everyday life you only find mile used in expressions like "to walk a mile in a man's shoes" or "mileage". People under the age of 50 will not use mile to refer to distance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erdunbar (talk • contribs) 01:47, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't add mile, rather all the others besides US, UK, Canada; did you *READ* the four separate references as to where the mile is used in Canada? Not everyone drives a train, but obviously trains are a very important part of the efficient, affordable bulk transportation of goods. Whether or not they are in common use, they are there every day on Canadian railways and every race at the track. This isn't a popularity contest, it's merely a statement of things as they exist in certain aspects of transportation in Canada. If someone wants to conduct a locomotive on a Canadian railroad, they had better learn about the mile and the foot or they will have a hard time getting a job.

Also, would like to point out that the nautical mile and thousands of feet of altitude are also used exclusively in Canadian airspace; this practice is so prevalent it has spread to one of the most metric countries in the world: Russia.

So there are definitely sectors where these units dominate, pop culture aside, and they need to be reported as such. Canada probably shouldn't be the first listing as the mile is only used in specialized sectors. Perhaps nearer to the end along with Puerto Rico and Turks & Caicos? I just left Canada after US UK and put the rest in ABC order because it took a long time to find all those references. Feel free to reorder and otherwise clean it up however you see fit. I also have US Territories (and British?) interspersed with actual independent nations; they should probably be separated. Surveyor792 (talk) 21:08, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd argue that the way the Wiki article is written leaves the impression that Canada (and those other countries) is an imperial country which would be incorrect. Like I mentioned, the mile is used in rather obscure industries (yes, rail and air travel are obscure since they don't form part of 99% of people's daily lives). Its use by the "common person" (99% of the population) would be in pop-culture references and antiquated phrases.
PS If you want to bring air travel into it there's a whole world out there :). AFAIK flying is mostly a miles-based activity.
Ireland (Republic of) is probably in the same situation as Canada with the rail industry still using miles and mph. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Ireland#Limerick_to_Waterford. Irish speed limits on roads switched to km/h only around 2005. Northern Ireland (with the rest of the UK) still use miles and mph on both the road and rail network... I very much doubt trains between the Republic and the North use different units. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Digg17 (talk • contribs) 20:06, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Regardless, the use of the mile outside of the US is typically deprecated and relegated to niche industries. In the Canadian context (being a Canadian) I can honestly say that I hardly ever see the mile used as a unit of measurement. The only time I see or hear miles used in something other than a phrase like "to walk a mile in..." is if a website is American in origin or you're dealing with someone who grew up close to the border AND is over the age of 50!
PS 2 I think the phrasing could be modified from:
the international mile continues to be used in many different countries besides the United Kingdom[3] and the United States.[4]
to:
the international mile continues to be used in certain industries in many different countries besides the United Kingdom[3] and the United States.[4]
Most countries are continuing with metrication, and even the US appears to be putting resources into shifting people's ability to work with metric. In Canada the younger generations largely work in metric units. The only sector of the economy where the imperial system is still in common use is in the trades but even there you're starting to see the effects of 40 years worth of metric education. I've noticed younger tradespeople working in metric and converting to imperial when they need to.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Erdunbar (talk • contribs) 15:05, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that isn't correct (please click on some of the links to see for yourself). Miles are PRIMARY in most or all of those countries, at least from what I could glean from their media. Some of them might have kilometers mentioned, in parentheses. The United States and UK aren't the only two countries using miles. The most damning, incorrect, repeated reference I hear about the mile is the "1970-something CIA World Factbook study" that doesn't even get the name of Myanmar right (they call it Burma). It doesn't even mention the UK (or Ireland or any on the list I've mentioned) and there were probably several others back then.

Just because the same incorrect source is cited over and over and over doesn't make it true. Please, by all means, read the news articles, written in English, but by natives of each of those countries, talking about miles, miles per hour, and sometimes acres and sq. feet and gallons (U.S. and Imperial), even roods and perches (1/4s and 1/160s ac.). While it is true some of them are partially metric (I'm sorry but I don't have an exhaustive list; some mentioned °C and meters and sq. meters), the only two that were more metric than inch-pound were Antigua&Barbuda and Puerto Rico. See "Miles per hour" on Wikipedia for what I mean.

These nations all converse in and use miles on their roadways. Where else do you think, I dug up articles on railroads on half the islands in the Caribbean? Their roads are signed in miles in every country on that list save Canada. And those same countries, plus the two I mentioned above all have MPH signs on their roadways.


Honestly, the biggest move I saw was in temperature, where Celsius seems to have caught on, followed maybe by hectares over acres (ironic as no one knows what an acre is anymore, Fahrenheit is probably the scale with the biggest argument in its favor as it could be used interchangeably with Celsius in scientific equations yet it seems to be used least.) Note that in Canada, the sq. foot and acre have NOT been relegated to industry, they're still actively used, and this is parallel to countries in this article cited as using miles.

I've been working on updating the article on acre, but may not get it done tonight. Most of these same countries all continue to use inch-pound.

Note I've not mentioned any OTHER traditional systems still in use. I'll draw your attention to the Province of Quebec where the *French* Customary System enjoys continued legal use for land measurement. The world is, thankfully, a lot more interesting than you think!Surveyor792 (talk) 02:39, 1 October 2013 (UTC)


Unfortunately, haven't figured out the template for adding text and other information to quotes, but I have compiled citations from each of the articles (some were bad, so I found others in the same paper that are current):

http://www.samoanews.com/?q=node/69174 This is not the first time the ASAA has been involved in such a swim. On May 12th of this year, they were involved in a 9-mile relay swim that was from Aunu’u Island to Utulei Beach Park to mark the beginning of the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuaries/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ‘Ocean Week’.

http://www.thenassauguardian.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=41622:murders-concentrated-in-inner-city&catid=3:news&Itemid=27 Ten of those murders took place within a 1.5 mile radius.

http://amandala.com.bz/news/pawpa-brown-race-results/ The Weekend Warriors (W/W) went from Leslie’s Imports to Garbutt’s Farm at Mile 25 on the Northern (Philip Goldson) Highway via Boom Road for the C Class, 38 miles; and from Leslie’s Imports to Crooked Tree Junction to Garbutt’s Farm at Mile 25, Northern (Philip Goldson) Highway via Boom Road for the A/B Class, 50 miles.

http://bvibeacon.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3442%3Amt-bikers-compete-in-anegada&Itemid=60 Three individuals also competed in the event by running 4.4 miles. Steve Asson was first to cross the finish line, followed by Ravi Sukhu and Oniasih Nimade. [. . .]The BVIMC will host its “biggest race of the season” on May 19. The 37-mile Tour de Tortola will have pre-registration on May 16 at Village Cay and May 18 at Last Stop Sports.

http://www.compasscayman.com/flowersseaswim/Visitor-Information/ The Cayman Islands are located in the Western Caribbean, 480 miles south of Miami, Florida. The largest of the three islands is Grand Cayman (approx 76 sq mi). The “Sister Islands” of Cayman Brac (14 sq mi) and Little Cayman (10 sq mi) lie 80 miles to the northeast of Grand Cayman.

http://www.penguin-news.com/index.php/news/sport/item/593-bronze-medal-for-falklands-football-at-island-games-in-bermudaThe 15th International NatWest Island Games were hosted by the Island of Bermuda which is a British Overseas Territory situated in the North Atlantic, some 600 miles from the United States mainland, and the state of North Carolina. Despite being just 22 miles long and 1.5 miles wide the Island has a population of 64,000 people, of which 54% are black and 31% are European.

http://www.spicegrenada.com/index.php/14-new-today-roundup/26-find-the-culprit-editorial It is still not too late for the police to send out some of the best cops that are good in doing on the ground work to scout all the nearby bushes within a five mile radius to see if they can stumble on something or anything that might give them a good lead on which to work.

http://www.guampdn.com/article/20120306/NEWS01/120306010/UPDATE-Navy-evacuates-patient-from-cruise-ship-50-miles-off-Guaml The Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 assisted in the medical evacuation of a woman who required advanced medical care from the cruise ship Arcadia about 50 miles northwest of Guam on Feb. 28, the Navy announced in a press release today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naypyitaw_Tollbooth.jpg

http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=75498&cat=2 The 13.7-mile long relay challenge starts 5:30am at PIC with the finish line located at the Last Command Post in Marpi.

http://www.samoaobserver.ws/index.php?view=article&catid=63%3Atala-fou-samoa&id=4504%3Afasia-le-gata&format=pdf&option=com_content&Itemid=85 The first was the main race course of five miles heading into Pago harbor, and plan B - in case of bad weather - was to start from the inner harbor, go out to the mouth of the harbor and back, also about a five mile course.

http://www.thevoiceslu.com/let_and_op/2008/feburary/09_02_08/What_we_can_do_about_oil.htm The oil rig mentioned above is about 30 miles north of Trinidad and therefore 18 miles from being inside the territorial waters of Grenada.

http://searchlight.vc/bus-operators-get-fare-increase-p33795-82.htm As of yesterday, minibus passengers travelling short drops, of distances over one mile, are being required to pay $1.50 for the service.

http://sthelenaonline.org/2012/10/31/missing-portrait-travels-from-auckland-and-goes-missing/ A portrait of a former ruler of St Helena has taken its place alongside others at the home of the island’s modern-day governors – but it very nearly failed to complete its 8,000-mile journey from New Zealand.

http://www.thestkittsnevisobserver.com/2012/09/28/commentary.html The Prime Minister in his vast wisdom plans to sell off 1200 acres, in other words 1.86 square miles, 52,272,000 square feet, 2.7% of St. Kitts

http://suntci.com/provo-has-a-new-club-p142-106.htm All in all each motorcycle clocked up sixty miles and when the last ride was declared the children all wanted more! http://virginislandsdailynews.com/news/passenger-slain-driver-injured-in-late-night-st-croix-shooting-1.1396793 Officers went to that area, about three miles away, and found a car near William's Delight with Fredericks' body inside, police said. Surveyor792 (talk) 03:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

It is not a good idea to try and catalogue which countries use the mile and which don't, especially when using newspaper reports. Different journalists in the same country might use different units of measure, journalists often repeat blindly what they have been told and so on. Unless you do a proper survey of the newspaper concerned (which is WP:OR anyway), you cannot hope to get an accurate picture of the country concerned and if you are pushing the pro-mile or anti-mile arguments, you are just engaging in a "my daddy is bigger than your daddy" type argument. Martinvl (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, the mile is clearly used far less worldwide than the kilometer. But, before my edits, the mile wasn't acknowledged as being used in *any* of these countries. If you really want to go in and look, several articles mentioned in both mile and miles per hour mention "mile markers." Can you provide a single source to a newspaper that takes a road incident and then converts the signs on the side of the road into kilometers? Most, if not all of the sources I've found use the mile in a manner consistent with what I've described above. I am not trying to "push" anything, I'm trying to show the world as it really is; there are many examples of United States newspapers using km. Does that make the US an all-metric country? I hope we see Google Maps in the Caribbean soon, so I can pick the photos right off the roadways; until then I'll rely on reliable sources in print. This does not in any way conflict with Wikipedia policy. Newspapers are reliable sources of information if they are reputably published and adhere to the standards of journalism. Surveyor792 (talk) 00:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
It is inappropriate that the list of newspaper reports citing use of the mile outside UK and the US should appear in the lede. The lede is supposed to be a summary of the article, so everything in the lede should also be in the body of the article. Moreover, that list is WP:OR and does not support the assertion that the CIA factbook is erroneous - the CIA factbook lists the official units of measure which are not always the same as those in everyday use. Please consider removing that paragraph. Martinvl (talk) 07:51, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

To Erdunbar and digg17: You are seeing the exploits of a desperate group of Luddites from the anti-metric camp trying desperately to find remnant uses of pre-metric measuring words in obscure places and giving the illusion they are in wide spread use out in the open. That is their intent. They want the exception to be the rule. It is good to see that sensible people are pointing out this anti-metric bias. It is a shame that they have to use Wikipedia as a battle ground to propagate their fictions into fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ametrica (talk • contribs) 11:22, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

1,609.34400000000005 ?

The box currently reads 1 mile = 1,609.34400000000005 m It should read 1 mile = 1,609.344 m

Unless anybody objects, I'll fix that before the end of the day — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.56.89.2 (talk) 16:33, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect and untrustworthy reference in preamble

The preamble, third paragraph, makes the claim:

the international mile continues to be used in some countries such as [...] the United Kingdom[3]

The footnote [3] refers to an opinion piece from the UK Metric Association detailing cherrypicked objections to continued use of MPH has a unit of speed. The opinion piece does not back up the assertion that the UK uses the International Mile, (nor does is any claim made that the mile used in the UK is defined in terms of metric units). I suggest the link is removed altogether, to be substituted with a link to some suitable legal decision detailing the UK's definition of a mile. --Rfsmit (talk) 20:52, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Attempts to Correlate

One source implies that all miles are 8 stadia, and that all stadia are 600 of their national foot. But the English mile of 5280 feet is exactly 8 of 660 English feet; the Roman mile of 5000 Roman feet is exactly 8 of 625 feet. Greek stadia come in three forms and yet the metric conversion doesn't explain their own correlation to their own units. There is definately error because how does 8 Italian stadia equal more meters than the English mile requiring 5000 Roman feet to be larger than the 5280 English feet and yet publish a Roman foot as 11.65 English inches? Another publication states the mistake of Columbus using 20,400 Italian miles as Earth's circumference instead of 20,400 Arabic miles of which here this article says Arabic mile is 1 minute of latitude thus 360x 60 min 21,600 min to equal 21,600 miles which is 1200 miles longer circumference than the other source. Now it would make more sense that a degree would be 60 Arabic miles not 56.6 Arabic miles. But is sense enough proof? Earth's degree of latitude is very close to 69 English miles which could be the unit spaces between 70 points, thus logic.

It would seem to me that if mile means 1000 (mil) then they started with the largest unit of Earth circumference as 24 hours each 1000 miles thus 24,000 miles. Unforunately, these 1000 miles of one hour (60 minutes of time) are 15 degrees of longitude (900 minutes of arc), and thus divides these 900 minutes of arc to be 1.1111 mile per minute of arc, or the more exact 0.9 minute of arc for every mile. Until, Earth was proven more than 24,000 miles. So if the English mile was an atrempt to claim exact 1000s of miles for Earth, this is why it varies from the 5000-foot Roman mile which you would think evolved from 5 miles each mile as 1000 feet. or was there some unit that could be 1000 of 5 Roman feet? Special:Contributions/75.86.172.174|75.86.172.174]] (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

This edit established the use of the page as British English, which should kindly be maintained pending a new consensus. Given that the UK has metricised itself, however, I do feel there should be a new consensus to use American English or at least a compromise that we use the abbreviated form (k)m instead of the spelling (kilo)metre or meter. — LlywelynII 06:00, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

K is temperature and not distance

When Eurosport by Giro d'Itala says, "Oh they have 10K left" it is very very cold, and the bikes will crack and the bikers die, quick. It is really very bad language of an international Tv-channel and they should really take some internal talks about it.

Nope. Welcome to English. — LlywelynII 06:01, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:USEENGLISH

In other news, miglio isn't different from the Italian mile. What was meant was (one kind of) the Sicilian mile as opposed to the Italian mile, both of which were called miglio/a in Italian. One way to clean that up is to remember that the English term should come first and the foreign-language term should be the one in italics and parentheses. — LlywelynII 06:04, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The common singular Latin form was mille passus; unusually, the partitive genitive milia passuum seems to be much more common for the plural. We should include the other major forms here since there isn't a separate article for them but we should use the most common form in our running text. Uncommon forms can go to Wiktionary if we have entries to link to with {{linktext}}.

Meanwhile, the terms Arab mile, Arabic mile, and Arabian mile are all fairly common in English but the MOST COMMON name is currently "Arabic mile" and we should just use that here, leaving the laundry list for its special article since it has one. (Separately, it also suits the fact that the units page is at "Ancient Arabic units of measurement".) — LlywelynII 06:23, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

London milestone

If it's really thought confusing to label a milestone patently showing the distance from Westminster to London as

"a Westminster milestone showing the distance... to London"

then just replace the image with something else. I understand there's a metropolitan London that ate both Westminster and the City but It makes no sense whatsoever to describe it as a "London milestone" showing the distance to itself. Now, that said, I find the correct caption perfectly straightforward and even helpful, given that it links directly to the City of London article rather than the London area one. — LlywelynII 10:14, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Hyde Park Corner is not in the City of London. The caption is clearer now. --TBM10 (talk) 10:35, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
It's fine if the milestone is incorrect and it's not actually the distance to the City of London. It's wonderful to fix the link to a more direct page. It is NOT acceptable AT ALL to say that a London milestone is pointing at itself. You're bumping up against WP:3RR so either let it alone or as suggested just find a better image to use here as a compromise measure. Surely there has to be something more attractive and historically notable. Did London have a zero-mile marker? Paris? — LlywelynII 11:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Nitpick re: "about" / "exact"

In the discussion of survey mile "about 1609.347 218 694 metres.... one international mile is exactly 0.999 998 survey miles." The former number, with 13 sig figs, is "definitely good enough for government work" ... so close that it seems like a waste of ink to write "about." The 0.999998 is even more extremely close ... accurate to 18 sig figs if my arithmetic is correct, but not exact. The survey foot is still defined as 12/39.37 meters. I changed "exactly" to "almost exactly" lest reader think it's definitional. (Source? Wikipedia!) Septimus.stevens (talk) 03:24, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

As a matter of interest:
1 mile = 1.609344*(3937/6336) US survey miles exactly
= 0.9999979999999999... US survey miles
I'm too lazy to properly investigate, but according to bc, there are more than 5,000 9s following the 7. Considering 0.999..., there may be an argument that 1 mile is exactly 0.999998 US survey miles! Johnuniq (talk) 05:30, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
That was a lot easier than I thought. It turns out that
1609344*3937/6336 = 999998 exactly
and that means 1 international mile = 999998/1e6 = 0.999998 exactly.
I will restore it in the article. Johnuniq (talk) 11:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

For posterity, here are some details based on the fact that 1 US survey foot = 1200/3937 meters (see here).

Johnuniq (talk) 22:39, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Johnuniq, for fighting my ignorance. I'm very embarrassed; I used to think I was good with numbers. (In fact, years ago I'm pretty sure I did your calculation ... and forgot it.) Maybe I'm getting too senile.  :-( My excuse is that I used bc but, despite large 'scale', the way I set it up intermediate results were inaccurate. Apologies. I'm embarrassed even to post this, but think you deserve acknowledgement. Septimus.stevens (talk) 15:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Anglocentrism

I see the English need to annex its neighbours has reared its ugly head here. Scottish, Irish and Welsh units are listed as "English".

As Brexit shows, the English love being a part of something only if they run it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.85.84.206 (talk) 14:36, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

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Length of Roman mile

The article on Pace (unit) gives the length of a pace (two steps) as 58.1 inches. This article on the mile says a Roman mile is 1000 paces (ie 2000 steps) so therefore a Roman mile was 0.91698 of an Imperial mile. But the Imperial units article says that there are two paces for every step rather than the two steps for every pace that this article gives, so they are inconsistent. 2.101.12.80 (talk) 15:08, 29 June 2014 (UTC) Not inconsistent. one is WRONG. Or do we have 4 pints in a quart and 2 quarts in a gallon because people don't know quart and quarter means 4? Maybe these Romans were amputees working at IHOP. I would like to know why there is such sensitive issue at correcting other's mistakes, ie if you dont like K for kilometer because it is a temp for Kelvin then change it in the article to km. Many people are confused with a single m for meter when the m could be mile (mi); why not me. Or how about caps versus small 1km = 1000m not 1000M. (?) Face it no standard system cause cross-confusion that results in wasted money on Mars landers crashing, while forced standards are for many another slavery. Does it matter Columbus thought he was in China! 75.86.172.174 (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Currently it is saying that Roman mile is 1481 meters which is not equal as it is given in feet and yard. That would be 4860 ft / 1620 yards!!! (4851 English feet or 1617 yards is 1478.6 meters!) JSoos (talk) 13:13, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

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Length

Do not know if a mile equal a kilometer and three-fifths (13⁄5 (in fraction form)) (1.6 kilometer (in decimal form))? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.223.135 (talk) 08:41, 31 December 2017‎ (UTC)


Please read the article, and particularly Mile#International mile. Please also read the replies to your questions at Talk:Kilometre, and please sign your questions with 4 tildes (~~~~), as stated at WP:signature. --David Biddulph (talk) 11:41, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

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Geographic mile = 1/15 grad, or degree?

In Mile#Comparison table it says one "geographic mile" is "1⁄15 equatorial grads" (1 grad = 0.9°); however the stated value (7,420.439 m) does not match this value; looks more like 1⁄15 equatorial degree, which matches the description in Mile#Geographical mile. Could someone clarify this? For now, I'm marking that as {{Dubious}}. —Cousteau (talk) 11:06, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

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