Why is a mile 5280

In , Parliament set about determining the length of the mile and decided that each one should be made up of eight furlongs. Since a furlong was feet, we ended up with a 5,foot mile. So if the statute mile is the result of Roman influences and plowing oxen, where did the nautical mile get its start? Strap on your high school geometry helmet for this one. Each nautical mile originally referred to one minute of arc along a meridian around the Earth.

Think of a meridian around the Earth as being made up of degrees, and each of those degrees consists of 60 minutes of arc. Thus, a nautical mile is 6, feet. Like the mile, the acre owes its existence to the concept of the furlong. Remember that a furlong was considered to be the length of a furrow a team of oxen could plow in one day without resting.

Over time, the old Saxon inhabitants of England established that this area was equivalent to a long, thin strip of land one furlong in length and one chain—an old unit of length equivalent to 66 feet—wide. That's how we ended up with an acre that's equivalent to 43, square feet. As the name implies, scholars think that the foot was actually based on the length of the human foot. The Romans had a unit of measure called a pes that was made up of twelve smaller units called unciae.

The Roman pes was a smidge shorter than our foot—it came in at around The furlong was feet and it was the approximate length an oxen can plow an ordinary field without resting. Since the furlong was used extensively in surveying, and the mile was becoming quite popular, in order to make things simpler, a decision was made that the mile should be a whole number of furlongs. Therefore, in , Queen Elizabeth I passed a law changing the mile to 5, feet which is exactly 8 furlongs.

And that is why a mile is 5, feet. Why are there feet in a mile? Latest Popular Hot Trending. Menu Ever Wonder Why? Myth or Fact? Subscribe Email address:. Think of a meridian around the Earth as being made up of degrees, and each of those degrees consists of 60 minutes of arc.

Thus, a nautical mile is 6, feet. Like the mile, the acre owes its existence to the concept of the furlong. Remember that a furlong was considered to be the length of a furrow a team of oxen could plow in one day without resting.

Over time, the old Saxon inhabitants of England established that this area was equivalent to a long, thin strip of land one furlong in length and one chain—an old unit of length equivalent to 66 feet—wide.

That's how we ended up with an acre that's equivalent to 43, square feet. As the name implies, scholars think that the foot was actually based on the length of the human foot. The Romans had a unit of measure called a pes that was made up of twelve smaller units called unciae. The Roman pes was a smidge shorter than our foot—it came in at around The inch foot didn't become a common unit of measurement until the reign of Henry I of England during the early 12th century, which has led some scholars to believe it was standardized to correspond to the inch foot of the king.

The gallon we use for our liquids comes from the Roman word galeta , which meant "a pailful.