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Feet to Metres

Convert feet to metres for plans, specs and paperwork.

Inputs
ft

The number of feet to convert.

Metres
1.8288m
In centimetres
182.9cm
1 ft
0.3048m
6 ft
1.8288m
100 ft
30.48m
1,000 ft
304.8m
metres = feet × 0.3048

1 ft = 0.3048 m

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Multiply feet by 0.3048 to get metres. The value is exact by definition rather than measured, so 6 feet is precisely 1.8288 metres and 100 feet is exactly 30.48.

How to use Feet to Meters Converter

  1. Enter the feet. Use decimals for part-feet — 5.5 rather than 5 ft 6 in.
  2. Read the metres. To four decimals, with centimetres underneath.

About converting feet to metres

The foot became exactly 0.3048 metres in 1959, when the major English-speaking countries agreed to define their customary units in terms of metric ones. That is why the number is precise and slightly arbitrary-looking: it was chosen to sit as close as possible to the various national feet then in use, and it happens to make 100 feet exactly 30.48 metres. Converting feet to metres comes up most often in construction, property and equipment specification, and the recurring problem in all three is dimensionality. A plan quoted in feet converts linearly; a floor area does not, and dividing square feet by 3.28 rather than 10.76 overstates the area by a factor of more than three — an error that appears regularly in international property listings. Volumes are worse again, at 35.31 cubic feet to the cubic metre, which matters for shipping quotes and concrete orders. The second recurring problem is feet-and-inches notation. Twelve inches to the foot means the decimal part of a foot is not inches, so 5.5 feet is 5 feet 6 inches while 5.6 feet is 5 feet 7.2. Converting the inches to twelfths before entering anything removes an entire class of error.

Frequently asked questions

How do I enter feet and inches?
Convert the inches to a fraction of a foot first: divide by twelve. 5 ft 9 in is 5.75 feet, which is 1.7526 metres. Entering 5.9 would give the wrong answer, since 0.9 feet is 10.8 inches rather than 9.
What is 6 feet in metres?
Exactly 1.8288 metres, usually rounded to 1.83 or spoken as "about one metre eighty". The roundness of 0.3048 is why 100 feet lands on precisely 30.48 metres with no recurring decimal.
How do I convert square feet to square metres?
Divide by 10.7639, not by 3.28. Area scales with the square of the linear factor, so a 1,000 square foot apartment is 92.9 square metres. Using the linear factor is the most common conversion error in property listings.
Why do aircraft use feet if most countries are metric?
Because international aviation standardised on feet for altitude early and the cost of changing outweighs the inconsistency. A few countries used metres historically, and the mismatch was a genuine safety concern until flight levels were harmonised.

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