Convert Mile (Roman) (mi (Roman)) to Span (Cloth) (span) instantly.
About these units
Mile (Roman) (mi (Roman))
The Roman mile was defined as 1,000 paces (mille passus), approximately 1,479 meters. It was used throughout the Roman Empire to standardize distances along roads, military routes, and territorial boundaries. Roman engineers laid out roads using milestones measured in miles, which facilitated logistics, military coordination, and trade. The mile also influenced subsequent measurement systems in medieval Europe, forming the basis for the English mile. Understanding the Roman mile is essential for archaeologists, historians, and engineers studying ancient infrastructure, providing insight into the efficiency and planning of the Roman transportation network.
Span (Cloth) (span)
The span is a unit traditionally used in textile measurement, equal to the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger when the hand is fully extended, approximately 22.86 cm (9 inches). This anthropometric unit was widely used by weavers and cloth merchants to measure lengths of fabric quickly and intuitively. Its small scale made it convenient for practical applications where tape measures or rulers were unavailable. The span also appears in cultural and historical texts as a natural unit of human proportion. While largely obsolete today, it offers insight into pre-industrial textile practices and the anthropometric basis of early measurement systems.