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Metres to Feet

Convert metres to feet and inches, for height and altitude.

Inputs
m

The number of metres to convert.

Feet
5.906ft
In feet and inches
5 ft 10.9 in
1 m
3.281ft
10 m
32.808ft
100 m
328.084ft
1,000 m
3,280.84ft
feet = metres ÷ 0.3048

1 m = 3.28084 ft

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Divide metres by 0.3048 to get feet, or multiply by 3.28084. A foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 metres, so 1.8 metres is precisely 5.906 feet — 5 feet 10.9 inches.

How to use Meters to Feet Converter

  1. Enter the metres. Decimals are fine — enter 1.75 for a height.
  2. Read the feet. With a feet-and-inches breakdown underneath, which is how heights are actually spoken.

About converting metres to feet

Metres to feet is straightforward until the answer has to be spoken, at which point the mismatch between decimal and duodecimal shows up. The fractional part of a decimal foot is not inches: 5.9 feet is 5 feet 10.8 inches, not 5 feet 9. Multiplying the fraction by twelve is the step people skip, and it is why converted heights so often come out an inch off. The larger error is dimensional. Length converts with one factor, area with its square and volume with its cube, so square metres to square feet is 10.7639 and cubic metres to cubic feet is 35.3147. Property listings, flooring quotes and shipping volumes all cross this boundary regularly, and using the linear factor understates area by a factor of more than three. Altitude has its own convention worth knowing: aviation quotes altitude in feet almost everywhere including metric countries, because international air traffic standardised on it, while Russia and China historically used metres — a genuine safety consideration that led to the flight level system being harmonised. For everyday use, the useful anchors are that a metre is a little over three feet and that 30 centimetres is almost exactly a foot.

Frequently asked questions

How tall is 1.8 m in feet?
1.8 metres is 5.906 feet, which reads as 5 feet 10.9 inches and is normally said as 5 foot 11. Heights are conventionally rounded to the nearest inch, so a range of about 1.8 to 1.81 metres all becomes 5 foot 11.
Why does converting height give an awkward decimal?
Because feet are duodecimal below the unit and metres are decimal. 0.906 feet is not 9 inches — it is 10.9. Multiply the fractional feet by twelve rather than reading the decimal as inches directly.
How do I convert square metres to square feet?
Not with this factor. Area scales with the square, so multiply by 10.7639 rather than 3.28. A 50 square metre flat is 538 square feet, and using the linear factor would give a badly wrong 164.
Is the US survey foot different?
It was, by about two parts per million, and it mattered over long distances in land surveying. It was officially retired at the end of 2022, so all current use is the international foot of exactly 0.3048 metres.

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