To convert miles to yards (mi to yd), multiply by 1,760. 1 mile equals 1,760 yd, about 4.9 times as much as the height of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.
| miles | yards |
|---|---|
| 1 mile | 1,760 yd |
| 2 miles | 3,520 yd |
| 5 miles | 8,800 yd |
| 10 miles | 17,600 yd |
| 25 miles | 44,000 yd |
| 50 miles | 88,000 yd |
| 100 miles | 176,000 yd |
| 250 miles | 440,000 yd |
| 500 miles | 880,000 yd |
| 1000 miles | 1,760,000 yd |
Definition: A mile is 5,280 feet, or exactly 1,609.344 meters.
History: It started as the Roman "mille passus" - literally a thousand paces, where a pace was a Roman soldier's double-step, about 5 Roman feet. That put the original Roman mile at 5,000 feet. Centuries later, English farmers were measuring land in furlongs (660 feet, the length of a furrow before an ox needed a rest), and in 1593 Queen Elizabeth I's Parliament decided a mile should equal exactly 8 furlongs - bumping the mile from 5,000 feet to 5,280, the number that's stuck ever since.
Current use: The US, UK, and a handful of other countries still measure road distances in miles. Aviation and shipping use a different mile entirely - the nautical mile, based on the Earth's circumference, not Roman soldiers' footsteps.
Definition: 3 feet, or exactly 0.9144 meters.
History: Popular legend credits King Henry I of England, who supposedly declared in the 12th century that a yard was the exact distance from the tip of his nose to his outstretched thumb - a good story, though historians note the yard likely existed informally before him and he simply made it official. Either way, by 1959 the same six-country agreement that fixed the foot and inch also locked the yard to its current, precise metric equivalent.
Current use: Fabric and carpet measurements, American football fields, and golf distances are still commonly given in yards.