A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5,280 feet (1,760 yards, or about 1,609 meters). The mile of 5,280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile (1,852 metres, about 6,076.1 feet). There have also been many historical miles and similar units in other systems that may be translated into English as miles; they have varied in length from 1 to 15 kilometres.
The exact length of the land mile varied slightly among English-speaking countries until the international yard and pound agreement in 1959 established the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, giving a mile of exactly 1,609.344 metres. The United States adopted this international mile for most purposes, but retained the pre-1959 mile for some land-survey data, terming it the US survey mile. In the US, statute mile formally refers to the survey mile, about 3.219 mm (⅛ inch) longer than the international mile (the international mile is exactly 0.0002% less than the US survey mile).
Use of the mile as a unit of measurement is now largely confined to the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.
Read more about Mile: Etymology, Roman Mile, Historical Miles in The Arabic World and Europe, Historical Miles in Britain and Ireland, Statute Mile, Metric Mile, Nautical Mile, Abbreviation and Symbol, Grid System, Idioms
Other articles related to "mile":
... (for example, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand), the mile is still used in a variety of idioms ... These include A country mile is used colloquially to denote a very long distance ... A miss is as good as a mile" (failure by a narrow margin is no better than any other failure) "Give him an inch and he'll take a mile" - a corruption of "Give him an inch and he'll ...
... Mile 209.8 is the county line, and shortly thereafter at mile 210.2, SH-33 Bypass provides a route for trucks to circumnavigate Drumright to the north and west ... At mile 211.9, on the east side of Drumright, SH-99 diverges to the north toward Pawhuska, and SH-16 travels south toward Muskogee ... SH-48 intersects SH-33 at mile 223.1, which goes south to Bristow and north to Cleveland ...
... The "last mile" or "last kilometer" is a phrase used by the telecommunications and cable television and internet industries to refer to the final ... The word "mile" is used metaphorically, the length of the "last mile" link may be more or less than a mile ... Because the last mile of a network to the user is also the first mile from the user to the world when he is sending data (such as uploading), the term "first ...
... The Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run ("Vermont 100") is a 100 mile (162 km) long ultramarathon held annually in July at Silver Hill Meadow in West ... It is one of the four 100 mile races that comprise the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning ...
... Haines, Alaska, km 0/mile 0 Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, km 15–50/mile 9–31 Klukwan, Alaska, km 34/mile 21 U.S.–Canadian border, km 66/mile 41 ...
Famous quotes containing the word mile:
“A man is murdered a mile away. And do you know what killed him? My name. The very name of Frankenstein burst his heart. And now the happy little villagers are clamoring for my blood.”
—Willis Cooper, and Rowland V. Lee. Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone)
“It was a tangled and perplexing thicket, through which we stumbled and threaded our way, and when we had finished a mile of it, our starting-point seemed far away. We were glad that we had not got to walk to Bangor along the banks of this river, which would be a journey of more than a hundred miles. Think of the denseness of the forest, the fallen trees and rocks, the windings of the river, the streams emptying in, and the frequent swamps to be crossed. It made you shudder.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For half a mile from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak.... This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,—more tumultuous, my companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only one sail in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously seeking a harbor.... It was the roaring sea, thalassa exeessa.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)