How to Do Metric Conversions to Feet

Life might get easier if one day the United States decides to adopt the metric system, but until that day comes you can learn how to do metric conversions to feet. Metric conversions are much easier to work with than feet are because unlike feet, which come in units of 12 inches, all metric units are multiples of ten. You can convert between different metric units simply by sliding a decimal point around, whereas when you want to convert feet to inches you need to work out a math problem.

The basic metric unit of length is the meter. You can divide meters into decimeters, centimeters and millimeters or you can multiply meters into decameters, hectometers and kilometers. The easiest way to remember the order of metric units of measurement is to remember this simple sentence:

King Henry Doesn't (Usually) Drink Chocolate Milk.

In this sentence, the first letter of each word stands for the first letter of metric prefix, in order from largest to smallest with the U in the middle symbolizing the unit, like this:

Kilometers Hectometers Decameters (Unit) Decimeters Centimeters Millimeters

If you want to convert your metric measurement to feet, just remember that one foot equals 30.48 centimeters. When you need to do your conversion, first figure out how many centimeters you have. If you have one meter, for example, that is 100 centimeters. You can do metric unit conversions very quickly by just thinking of each unit as adding a zero to either the left or the right of the number you have, based upon whether the unit you want to know is to the left or right of the unit in the figure above. Then you just divide this number by 30.48, so you would have about 3.28 feet. If you need to figure out how many inches you are left with, multiply this number by 12.