Convert feet to meters instantly — with the full working shown.
Six feet, 1.83 meters — the same height in two languages. Length is the first thing children measure and the last thing engineers stop converting, because the US builds in feet and the world builds in meters. Our free Feet to Meters Converter multiplies by the exact international factor, shows the step, and adds centimeter and inch cross-checks.
Since the 1959 international agreement, the foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 meters — not measured, defined. That makes m = ft × 0.3048 exact: a 6-foot person is 1.8288 m, full stop, and every digit the converter prints is meaningful.
Enter any foot value and the converter returns meters to three decimals, plus centimeters and total inches. Whether you are reading a floor plan, checking a height requirement, or converting sports stats, the step is shown and the math is exact.
The foot is ancient — literally based on the human foot — but its modern form is precise: the international foot is exactly 0.3048 m since 1959. Twelve inches make a foot; three feet make a yard (0.9144 m exactly). US construction, aviation altitudes, and real estate all think in feet.
The meter is the SI base unit of length, defined since 1983 by the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second. It is the world’s building unit: architecture, engineering, and sport outside the US all measure in meters and centimeters.
Why 0.3048 is exact: the 1959 agreement defined the yard as 0.9144 m, and the foot as one-third of that. Unlike the gallon — which has competing US and imperial definitions — the foot has no split: one factor, worldwide, exact.
Key terms:
The factor 0.3048 is exact by the 1959 definition — this conversion has no measurement uncertainty, only display rounding.
Convert a height of 6 feet to meters.
The canonical “six-footer” is 1.83 m — the number on every international ID form.
A runway is listed as 10,000 ft long. Express it in meters.
Aviation charts list both: 10,000 ft / 3,048 m — the converter reproduces the chart pairing exactly.
Nadia in Dubai finds a New York listing: bedroom 12 × 14 ft. Her furniture is measured in meters. She converts: 12 × 0.3048 = 3.658 m; 14 × 0.3048 = 4.267 m. Her 2-meter bed fits the 3.66-m wall with room to spare — the converter just prevented a cross-continent furniture mistake.
A second scenario: a marathoner’s training plan says “6 × 800 m” but the local track is marked in feet (a quarter-mile = 1320 ft). 800 × 3.28084 = 2624.67 ft per rep — she now knows where to stop on an unmarked track.
A third: a pilot reads a mountain’s elevation as 14,505 ft (Mt. Whitney). 14505 × 0.3048 = 4421.1 m — the number her European altimeter-app expects.
A fourth: a basketball scout lists a prospect at 6 ft 9 in (6.75 ft). 6.75 × 0.3048 = 2.057 m — the 2.06-m figure European clubs put on the roster.
Construction is the great unit border: US blueprints in feet and inches, international ones in millimeters. A 2×4 stud is nominally 1.5 × 3.5 inches (38 × 89 mm); the converter’s exact factor keeps cross-border material orders honest.
Aviation flies in feet worldwide — flight levels (FL350 = 35,000 ft), runway lengths, obstacle clearances — while airport construction uses meters. Pilots and builders convert at every project meeting.
Sports: basketball courts (94 ft), football fields (100 yards), swimming pools (50 m Olympic) — each sport froze its units historically. Comparing a 6-ft receiver to a 1.95-m striker needs this conversion.
Real estate: US listings in square feet, international in square meters; ceiling heights in feet vs. meters. The 0.3048 factor (and its square, 0.092903, for area) prices cross-border property decisions.
Medicine: heights recorded in cm globally, in feet/inches in the US. Growth charts, BMI, and drug dosing all need consistent units — the converter’s cm readout speaks clinic.
Mountaineering: the Seven Summits are quoted in both: Everest 29,032 ft / 8,849 m. Expedition logistics — oxygen, ropes, camps — plan in meters while US climbers think in feet.
Everyday intuition: a foot is roughly a long ruler; a meter is roughly a yard plus three inches. The converter replaces “roughly” with exact whenever it matters.
One pattern worth internalizing: like the pound, the foot’s 1959 definition made conversion exact. There is no US/imperial foot split — 0.3048 is universal. Memorize it alongside 2.54 cm/in and the whole imperial length system unlocks.
Textiles: fabric is sold by the yard in the US (0.9144 m) and by the meter elsewhere; pattern envelopes list both. A “3-yard” cut is 2.743 m — the converter’s exact factor keeps international pattern orders accurate.
Swimming: US pools are 25 yards; Olympic pools are 50 meters. A 100-yard freestyle (91.44 m) is 8.6% shorter than 100 meters — records don’t transfer, and the 0.9144 factor explains why.
American football: a 100-yard field is 91.44 m; the “40-yard dash” is 36.576 m. Combine stats translate for international scouts via the exact factor — 4.4 seconds over 36.576 m.
Gardening: seed packets sow “1 inch deep, 6 inches apart” — 2.54 cm and 15.24 cm. Metric gardeners convert the spacing grid once, then plant by the centimeter tape all season.
Track and field: the 40-yard dash (36.576 m) is football’s marquee measurement, while sprinters are timed over 100 m. Scouts convert: a 4.40-s 40-yard dash is 36.576/4.40 = 8.31 m/s average — comparable to a 100-m sprinter’s mid-race velocity. The 0.3048 factor lets two sports’ speed languages interconvert, which is why “Olympic fast” and “football fast” can finally be argued with numbers instead of anecdotes.Ski resort marketing: Vail advertises 3,450 ft of vertical drop while Val d’Isère advertises 1,900 m. The American skier comparing them converts: 3450 × 0.3048 = 1051.6 m — barely half the French resort’s vertical — and the exact factor settles the debate definitively, because the 0.3 approximation would have hidden a 51-meter gap. Conversely, the European skier eyeing Jackson Hole’s 4,139 ft converts to 1261.6 m and books the flight. Vertical drop sells lift tickets, and the foot-to-meter factor is the exchange rate of the ski industry’s bragging rights.
Construction lumber exports: a “12-foot” 2×4 is 3.6576 m — the number on the export manifest when US lumber ships to metric markets. The 0.3048 factor prices international timber: a mill quoting 3.66 m boards that actually measure 3.6576 m ships 2.4 mm short per board, and over a container of 500 boards that is 1.2 m of missing lumber. The exact factor keeps the manifest honest, which is why timber contracts specify the conversion factor to six decimals rather than trusting anyone’s mental math.
Cave surveying: the world’s deepest cave, Veryovkina, drops 7,257 ft — 2,212 m. Expedition reports quote both: feet for the caving magazines, meters for the scientific survey. The 0.3048 factor converts the rope lengths, the pitch depths, and the sump dives — every vertical meter of the cave exists in two unit systems, and the survey’s integrity depends on the factor being exact, not approximate. A 0.3-approximation would misplace the bottom by 35 m, which in a cave is the difference between the published depth and a rescue team searching the wrong level.
Feet to meters: m = ft x 0.3048 (exact, 1959). Reverse: ft = m x 3.280839895. cm = ft x 30.48. Source: Sigma Calculator, Feet to Meters Converter, https://sigmacalculator.net/math-calculators/feet-to-meters-converter/
Cite this page as: Feet to Meters Converter, Sigma Calculator, https://sigmacalculator.net/math-calculators/feet-to-meters-converter/
Last updated: October 12, 2026