gizmobench

Meters to Feet Converter

Meters to feet is one division: ft = m / 0.3048, because the 1959 international agreement fixed a foot at exactly 0.3048 metres. One metre is therefore 3.280839895013... feet, a decimal that never ends, and the converter above prints it as 3.28083989501, twelve significant digits with trailing zeros dropped. It opens with Metre in the From box and Foot in the To box whatever pair you converted last, and it answers as you type: 1.8 m reads 5.90551181102 ft, 2 m reads 6.56167979003 ft and 100 m reads 328.083989501 ft. Under the headline the same length is listed in millimetres, centimetres, kilometres, inches, feet, yards, miles and nautical miles, and that Inch row is where feet and inches come from: keep the whole feet from the headline and multiply what is left over by 12. The Swap units button between the two boxes turns the page into a feet to metres converter, where the division becomes a multiplication by 0.3048.

To3.28083989501
Category
Length
Base unit
metre
Uncommon units

1 m in every length unit

  • Millimetremm
    1,000
  • Centimetrecm
    100
  • Kilometrekm
    0.001
  • Inchin
    39.3700787402
  • Footft
    3.28083989501
  • Yardyd
    1.09361329834
  • Milemi
    0.000621371192237
  • Nautical milenmi
    0.000539956803456

Metres to feet at the lengths people look up

Every figure is the converter's own output for that number of metres, rounded for reading: feet to four decimals, inches to two, and the feet and inches column to the nearest tenth of an inch. The 0.3048 m and 1,609.344 m rows are exact, which is why they read 1 and 5,280 with nothing after the decimal point.

MetresFeetFeet and inchesInches
0.3048 m11 ft 0.0 in12.00 in
1 m3.28083 ft 3.4 in39.37 in
1.5 m4.92134 ft 11.1 in59.06 in
1.6 m5.24935 ft 3.0 in62.99 in
1.7 m5.57745 ft 6.9 in66.93 in
1.75 m5.74155 ft 8.9 in68.90 in
1.8 m5.90555 ft 10.9 in70.87 in
1.83 m6.00396 ft 0.0 in72.05 in
1.9 m6.23366 ft 2.8 in74.80 in
2 m6.56176 ft 6.7 in78.74 in
3 m9.84259 ft 10.1 in118.11 in
5 m16.404216 ft 4.9 in196.85 in
10 m32.808432 ft 9.7 in393.70 in
25 m82.021082 ft 0.3 in984.25 in
50 m164.0420164 ft 0.5 in1,968.50 in
100 m328.0840328 ft 1.0 in3,937.01 in
200 m656.1680656 ft 2.0 in7,874.02 in
400 m1,312.33601,312 ft 4.0 in15,748.03 in
1,000 m3,280.83993,280 ft 10.1 in39,370.08 in
1,609.344 m5,2805,280 ft 0.0 in63,360.00 in
5,000 m16,404.199516,404 ft 2.4 in196,850.39 in

Common questions

How do you convert meters to feet?
Divide by 0.3048, or multiply by 3.280839895013, which is the same arithmetic written the other way round. So 1 m is 3.2808 ft, 5 m is 16.4042 ft and 100 m is 328.084 ft. The converter above does the division in double precision and prints twelve significant digits, so 10 m comes back as 32.8083989501 ft. To go the other way, press Swap units and multiply instead: 6 ft is exactly 1.8288 m.
Is a foot exactly 0.3048 meters?
Yes. The 1959 international yard and pound agreement defines an inch as exactly 2.54 cm, and a foot is 12 inches, so a foot is exactly 30.48 cm or 0.3048 m. There is no rounding inside the definition, which is why the converter returns 0.3048 m as 1 ft with nothing after the decimal point, and 1,609.344 m, one statute mile, as exactly 5,280 ft. The factor stored for a foot is 0.3048, so only the printed digits are rounded.
What is 1.8 m in feet and inches?
5 ft 10.9 in. The headline reads 5.90551181102 ft, so keep the 5 whole feet and multiply the 0.90551181102 that is left over by 12, which gives 10.866 in, or 10.9 in to the nearest tenth. The Inch row under the result shows the same height as 70.8661417323 in, and 70.8661 divided by 12 is the same 5.9055 ft. The headline stays in decimal feet because that is the number that goes into a spreadsheet; the chart at the foot of this page gives both forms together.
How many feet is 100 meters?
328.083989501 ft, which is 328 ft 1.0 in. The distances people usually ask about follow from the same division: 25 m is 82.021 ft, 50 m is 164.042 ft, 200 m is 656.168 ft and 400 m, one lap of an outdoor track, is 1,312.336 ft. A 5,000 m race is 16,404.1995 ft, and the mile at 1,609.344 m is its 5,280 ft by definition.
How do I convert feet back to meters?
Press the Swap units button between the two boxes and the pair reverses without reloading the page: type 6 and the answer is 1.8288 m, and 10 ft reads 3.048 m. Both unit menus stay open as well, so the same measurement will go from metres into inches, yards, miles or nautical miles without leaving this page, and the uncommon units switch adds seven more, from nanometres and thous to light years and parsecs.
Why does the answer have so many decimal places?
Because metres to feet almost never lands on a short decimal: one metre is 3.280839895013... feet and the digits run on. Results are shown to twelve significant digits with trailing zeros dropped, which keeps the exact cases clean, since 0.3048 m reads 1 rather than 0.99999999, and leaves enough precision for you to round wherever you want. Copy result puts the headline on your clipboard exactly as printed but without the thousands separators.
The menus say Metre and Foot. Is that the same as meter?
Yes. Metre is the international spelling used in the SI brochure and meter is the American one, and the unit behind them is identical: the symbol is m either way and so is the arithmetic. The same holds for centimetre and centimeter in the list below the result.
Why does this page open on metres and feet when I last converted something else?
Because a page that names a pair should show that pair. This one sets metres and feet on arrival, ahead of whatever the converter last remembered, and it leaves the main unit converter's own memory alone: go back there and it is still on the pair you left it on. The number you last typed does travel with you, since it is usually the one you are still working on. Nothing is uploaded either way. The conversion is arithmetic against a table of factors that ships with the page, so it keeps working with no network connection once the page has loaded.

Conversion factors are the exact legal definitions where one exists. An inch is exactly 2.54 cm and a pound exactly 0.45359237 kg, so those conversions are exact rather than approximate. Temperature uses offsets rather than factors, and that is shown in the working.