Convert delightfully odd historical and humorous units — furlongs, smoots, barns and more — into metres and everyday sizes.
1 smoot = 1.7018 m (the height of Oliver Smoot, measured on Harvard Bridge in 1958). 1 furlong = 201.168 m.
Converted length
How to use this tool
Type how many of the weird unit you have.
Smoot, furlong, chain, rod, cubit, hand, beard-second or barn.
The result is in metres, with centimetres and feet too.
Each result carries the story behind the unit.
Formula & worked example
Harvard Bridge is famously 364.4 smoots long — that is 364.4 × 1.7018 m ≈ 620 m. A furlong (201.168 m) is the horse-racing unit still used in race distances.
Limitations — read this before you rely on it
Historical units varied by place and era (especially the cubit); values here are the commonly standardised ones, and the barn is an area shown only as an equivalent square side.
Frequently asked questions
In 1958 MIT students measured Harvard Bridge using Oliver Smoot's body laid end-to-end: 1 smoot = 5 ft 7 in = 1.7018 m. The bridge is 364.4 smoots plus one ear.
An old English unit: 1/8 of a mile = 220 yards = 201.168 m. It survives in horse racing.
A humorous unit: the distance a beard grows in one second, roughly 5 nanometres.
A unit of nuclear cross-section area, 10⁻²⁸ m² — jokingly 'as big as a barn' for physicists. Here it is shown as the side of an equivalent square.
Furlong, chain, rod, hand and cubit values here are the standardised definitions; smoot and beard-second are conventional approximations.