Metric in China

Units used in China are not the same as, say in the USA or other countries. Some common units are listed below. Although initially it might bother some expats in China, I can assure you after a while you'll get used to it :) For this issue, the tip for living in China (especially for those who like cooking): get a calculator or get some coversion unit tables from the web.


km (kilometer) is used to express distance instead of miles.  1 mile is roughly 1.6 km.
1 mile ~ 1.6 km   or   1 km ~ 0.625 mile

Example: a 10 km distance is about 6.25 miles.


For weather, cooking, etc, we use Celcius instead of Fahrenhait.
F= 9/5 C + 32

For example: 10C in Fahrenhait would be (9/5)*10 +32 = 50 F


For length, sometimes we use centimeter (cm), but sometimes we use our own unit chi.
1 inch=2.54 cm

For example: 2 inches= 2*2.54=5.08 cm

1 尺 (chǐ) ~ 30.48 cm When you go to clothing/clothes store, most sellers are using chǐ


If you go to buy fruit, vegetable, rice, etc, sellers are using jin.
1 jin (斤)   is about 1 pound 1斤~1.1lb


For smaller items such as  spices, say star anise, five spice, etc, the seller uses liang.

1jin~ 10 liang (两)

Other commonly used unit is Gram.

1 公斤 (gong jin or kg) = 1,000 克 (gram)

1 毫克 = 0.001 克 （1克=1000毫克） (毫 háo mili)


For volume, we use liter here. For example to buy gasoline
1 gallon ~ 2.78 liter

 升shēng is liter


Say you buy water (sewer), the unit is dun
1 吨 (dūn) = 1 ton = 1000 kg

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