Feet in a mile

There are 5,280 feet (ft) in 1 mile (mi).

How to remember how many feet in a mile

To remember how many feet there are in 1 mile, we can use the mnemonic "five tomatoes." We can break the syllables of "five tomatoes" down such that each syllable tells us 1 digit of the number of feet in a mile:

• five → 5


• to → pronounced "two" → 2


• mat → pronounced "mate" → sounds like eight → 8


• oes → pronounced "o's" → indicates 0 → 0

Thus, the "five" simply tells us the first digit, the "to" tells us that the second digit is the number 2, the "mat" sounds like the pronunciation of 8, and "o" is a way to say the number 0. Putting it all together, there are 5,280 feet in 1 mile.

Mile origin

The mile originated from the Roman measure of paces. The name mile comes from the Latin mille passus, which means "a thousand paces." The measurement of a pace was 5 feet, so a thousand paces is equal to 1000 × 5 = 5,000, giving is 5,000 feet in a mile.

Mile definition

The definition of the mile today is referred to as the international mile, where 1 mile = 5,280 feet, which differs from the definition of the mile used in Roman times, where there were 5,000 feet in a Roman mile.

In Rome, the measurement of feet was based on a typical person's foot at the time, which was on average, slightly smaller than it is today. Thus, 5 Roman feet is approximately equal to 4.85 feet in the imperial system; this equates to approximately 5,121.6 feet today.

There are a number of other miles used, for example the nautical mile (1853.249 m in the US), US survey mile (1609.347 m), metric mile (1500 m or 1600 m in the US), and more. Also, there are many other definitions of the mile that were used throughout history, all of which have different measures. Some of these include the Italian mile, Arabic mile, and of course, the Roman mile.

How did it become 5,280 feet in a mile

The definition of 5,280 feet in a mile comes from the imperial system of measurement. In the imperial system, there is a measurement of length called the furlong, where 1 furlong is equal to 660 feet. In 1592, Parliament decided to standardize the definition of a mile and changed the definition of the mile to be based on the furlong. In this new definition, 1 mile = 8 furlongs. Thus:

1 mile = 8 furlongs = 8 × 660 ft = 5,280 ft

Feet to miles conversion

The following converter can convert from feet to miles or miles to feet. Just enter a value in either feet or miles to convert between the two.

	feet
	miles

Convert feet and miles

Below are some conversions between feet, miles, and other common measurements of length.

Convert miles to feet

miles × 5,280 = feet

Convert miles to meters

miles × 1,609.344 = meters

miles × 1.609344 = kilometers

Convert miles to furlong

miles × 8 = furlong

Convert miles to yards

miles × 1,760 = yards

Convert miles to inches

miles × 63,360 = inches

Convert feet to miles

feet ÷ 5,280 = miles

Convert feet to meters

feet ÷ 3.2808 = meters

feet ÷ 3,280.8 = kilometers

Convert feet to furlongs

feet ÷ 660 = furlongs

Convert feet to yards

feet ÷ 3 = yards

Convert feet to inches

feet × 12 = inches