Germany had an indigenous system of German units of measurement prior to its adoption of the international metric system. These units are now mainly of historical interest.
Before the introduction of the metric system in German, almost every town had its own definitions of the units shown below, and supposedly by 1810, in Baden alone, there were 112 different standards for the Elle around Germany. The metric system was a much-needed standardisati...
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Germany had an indigenous system of German units of measurement prior to its adoption of the international metric system. These units are now mainly of historical interest.
Before the introduction of the metric system in German, almost every town had its own definitions of the units shown below, and supposedly by 1810, in Baden alone, there were 112 different standards for the Elle around Germany. The metric system was a much-needed standardisation in Germany.
A German geographic mile (geographische Meile) is defined as 1/15 equatorial degrees, equal to 7420.54 m. A common German mile, land mile, or post mile (Gemeine deutsche Meile, Landmeile, Postmeile) was defined in various ways at different places and different times. After the introduction of the metric system in the 19th century the Landmeile was generally fixed at 7500 m (the Reichsmeile), but before then there were many local and regional variants (of which some are shown below):
This is of Carolingian origin, used as a land...
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