A kilometer is a unit of distance in the metric system, equal to 0.62 miles. It is based on the meter, which is defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The spelling and pronunciation of the word varies.
A kilometer is a unit of distance in the International System of Units (SI) or metric system of measurement. The kilometer is used extensively around the world as a measure of distance, with the US and UK sticking to the statutory mile. Conversion calculators are readily available for people who need to be able to provide distances in both kilometers and miles.
For context for wiseGEEK readers in areas that use other measurement systems, one kilometer equals .62 legal miles and is sometimes described as approximately 5/8 of a mile. This unit of measurement is also roughly equivalent to half a nautical mile. When converting, people often round up or down for convenience; for example, when someone describes a speed limit as “25 miles per hour” and converts it to kilometers, they will likely say the speed limit is “40 miles per hour” even though it’s technically 40.2336.
The metric system has gone through a number of changes since people started developing it. The goal of the system was to create a standardized system of measurements that worked on orders of 10. For distance, the basic unit is the metre. A meter contains 100 centimeters, smaller units of measure, 10 decimeters, 1,000 millimeters, and so on. Conversely, a kilometer contains 1,000 metres, as the name suggests. Kilo means “1,000” and “meter” refers to the base unit of measure.
Since 1983, the length of a meter is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. This differs from earlier reference systems which relied on physical objects such as molten metal rods to measure distance. Units in the metric system are given by attaching prefixes to the base unit of measure. This system is often found to be more convenient and accurate by its users, in contrast to imperial units or US customary units, which use inches, feet, yards and miles that do not scale neatly up and down as measurements in the system do YES.
People may notice that there are different spellings of kilometer. In the United States, the word is spelled “kilometer,” but in other regions it is seen as “kilometer.” This is one of many spelling variations that reflects the divergence that the English language has experienced. There are also disputes about how the word should be pronounced and where the accent marks should be placed in the word.
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