chi

Traditional Chinese unit of length

Entityunit of length Chinese unit of measurementQ2963205

Also known as Chinese foot · chek · ch’ek · check

Instance of: unit of length
, Chinese unit of measurement

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

The chi is a traditional Chinese unit of length. Although it is often translated as the "Chinese foot", its length was originally derived from the distance measured by a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and is similar to the ancient span. It first appeared during China's Shang dynasty approximately 3,000 years ago and has since been adopted by other East Asian cultures such as Japan (shaku), Korea (ja/cheok), and Vietnam (thước). Its present value is standardized at around one-third meter, although the exact standards vary among the mainland of the People's Republic of China, its special administrative region of Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Overview

All data

9 statements · 0% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Native label: 尺 hanyu pinyin transliteration: chǐ
Different from: Chi
Measured physical quantity: length
Conversion to SI unit: 0.3333 m

On other databases

4 identifiers linking chi across the web's reference databases

Encyclopædia Britannica Online IDscience/chi-unit-of-measurement
Freebase ID/m/07sc9b7
Great Norwegian Encyclopedia IDchi
Wolfram Language unit code"MarketChis"

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Source last edited March 27, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

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AIDb. (2026). chi (Q2963205). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/chi-Q2963205