Meters to Feet conversion

Meters to feet

The meter is the base unit of length in the metric system; the foot is the everyday unit of the United States and, for height and altitude, much of the English-speaking world. Since 1959 the foot has been defined as exactly 0.3048 m, so the exact conversion is 1 m = 3.28084 ft. Multiply meters by 3.28084 — or by 3.28 for anything short of a survey.

Mental shortcut

Triple the meters and add 10 %. A 30 m building is 90 + 9 = 99 ft (98.4 exactly). Another anchor: 3 m is almost 10 ft, so a 3-meter ceiling is a 10-foot ceiling.

• 1 m = 3.28 ft
• 2 m = 6.56 ft (6 ft 7 in)
• 5 m = 16.4 ft
• 10 m = 32.81 ft
• 25 m = 82.02 ft (a short-course pool)
• 50 m = 164.04 ft (an Olympic pool)
• 100 m = 328.08 ft
• 1000 m = 3 280.84 ft

Height

People's heights are the most common reason for this conversion. 1.75 m is 5.74 ft, which in feet and inches is 5 ft 9 in (0.74 × 12 = 8.9). To get the feet-and-inches form, multiply the decimal part of the result by 12.

Altitude and depth

Aviation and mountaineering use feet for altitude even in metric countries: a 3 000 m mountain is 9 843 ft, and commercial jets cruise around 11 000 m, 36 000 ft. Divers do the opposite, with metric depth gauges reading 30 m where an older gauge would say 98 ft.

Sport and construction

Running distances are metric worldwide (a 400 m track is 1 312 ft), but American football fields are 100 yards, 91.44 m. Building materials in the US come in 8, 10 and 12-foot lengths — 2.44, 3.05 and 3.66 m — which is why metric plans often end up with awkward offcuts.