Yards to Feet Converter

The yard is exactly 0.9144 meters, three feet or thirty-six inches. It is a defined multiple of the meter, not an independent standard. Its value was fixed by the same international agreement that defined the foot and the inch.

Fabric, carpet and some flooring are still sold by the yard, and the chain and furlong used in land and horse racing are built from yards. American football is measured in yards.

Conversions run through the exact metric value, so a yard in meters is exactly 0.9144 and in centimeters exactly 91.44. Printed results are rounded, which can alter the final digit on a conversion there and back.

A yard is not a meter, though the two are close enough that a rough estimate will look plausible on fabric. Buyers who order yards and measure in meters can come up short.

A yard is three feet, a little less than a meter. Fabric is sold in yards in some markets and in meters in others, so a price per yard and a price per meter are not comparable, differing by about nine percent.

The foot is exactly 0.3048 meters, or twelve inches. United States survey work has used a separate survey foot, defined as 1200/3937 meters and equal to about 0.3048006 meters.

Aviation uses feet for altitude and flight levels worldwide, even in countries that measure road distance in kilometers. Building heights, room dimensions, timber and, in some places, body height are also quoted in feet.

The metric conversion is exact, since the foot is defined as 0.3048 meters, and the reverse is exact too. A displayed result is rounded to six decimal places at most, so a round trip can differ in the final digit.

The common slip is assuming a foot is close to a third of a meter when it is slightly longer, so rough mental division undershoots. Feet also belong to length, while square feet measure area and cubic feet measure volume.

The foot competes with the meter for height and building dimensions and with the inch for small spans. Because one meter is a little over three feet, treating a meter figure as feet overstates a dimension more than threefold.