Feet to Meters Converter (ft to m)

Article — Feet to Meters Converter (ft to m)

Feet to Meters: Heights, Ceilings, and Diving Depth

One foot equals 0.3048 metres exactly. The formula is m = ft × 0.3048. A 6-foot person is 1.8288 m. A 10-foot ceiling is 3.048 m. A 35,000-foot cruise altitude is 10.668 km. The factor is exact, not an approximation — the 1959 International Yard and Pound Agreement fixed 1 ft at 0.3048 m.

Feet survive everywhere imperial measurement once dominated. American homes are sold by the square foot. British and US pilots fly in feet. Recreational divers in the US plan profiles in feet. Most of the world has moved to metres for the same purposes, which is why the conversion comes up so often when reading rules, specifications, or travel documents from across the Atlantic.

The exact feet to meters factor

The factor is 0.3048 metres per foot, exact. Multiply feet by 0.3048 for metres; divide metres by 0.3048 for feet. The reverse factor 1/0.3048 = 3.28083989... is not a terminating decimal, but 3.2808 is enough for everyday work. From the same 1959 agreement: 1 yard = 0.9144 m, 1 inch = 25.4 mm, 1 mile = 1609.344 m.

For feet-and-inches inputs, divide the inches by 12 and add to the feet before multiplying. 5 ft 10 in = 5 + 10/12 = 5.8333 ft, x 0.3048 = 1.778 m. Or convert to total inches: 70 in x 0.0254 = 1.778 m. The two routes match exactly because the underlying factors do.

Feet to meters for human height

Americans and Britons describe height in feet and inches; almost every other country uses centimetres or metres. The mapping is fixed. 5 ft = 152.4 cm. 5 ft 4 in = 162.6 cm. 5 ft 8 in = 172.7 cm. 5 ft 10 in = 177.8 cm. 6 ft = 182.9 cm. 6 ft 2 in = 188.0 cm. 6 ft 6 in = 198.1 cm. The CDC reports the US adult male median height at 5 ft 9 in (175.3 cm) and adult female median at 5 ft 4 in (161.5 cm).

Height on dating apps is a fault line. A 2019 analysis found US men listed as 6 ft (182.9 cm) received notably more matches than men listed as 5 ft 11 in (180.3 cm), although the gap is just 2.5 cm. The cultural threshold sits on the unit boundary, not on the centimetre. Metric users do not show the same kink at 180 cm.

Building and ceiling heights in feet to meters

US residential ceilings are quoted in feet. The minimum legal ceiling height under most US building codes is 7 ft (2.13 m) for habitable rooms; 8 ft (2.44 m) is the standard for older homes; 9 ft (2.74 m) is the modern norm for new builds. A 10-foot ceiling (3.05 m) is considered a feature. European building codes generally specify a minimum of 2.4 m for living rooms (7 ft 10 in) and 2.3 m for bedrooms (7 ft 7 in), measured to the underside of the structure above.

Skyscraper heights cross the boundary repeatedly. The Empire State Building's main roof is 1,250 ft (381 m); to the tip of the antenna, 1,454 ft (443.2 m). The Burj Khalifa stands at 2,717 ft (828 m). One World Trade Center reaches a symbolic 1,776 ft (541.3 m), nodding to the year of US independence. Building heights are nearly always given in feet in US press and in metres in international press, so the same building swaps numbers depending on the source.

Pool and diving depths: feet to meters underwater

Recreational pools in the US post depth in feet on the tile. A shallow end at 4 ft (1.22 m) is below average adult shoulder height; a 6-foot deep end (1.83 m) just covers the head of a tall swimmer. Olympic competition pools use metres everywhere: 2 m minimum depth, 3 m for diving wells. The 10-metre Olympic platform is exactly 32 ft 9.7 in above the surface.

Scuba diving depths cross the unit line too. The first atmosphere of water pressure is reached at 33 ft (10.06 m) of seawater — one of the most important numbers for divers because total pressure doubles at this depth. Recreational dive limits: 60 ft (18.3 m) for novice certification, 100 ft (30.5 m) for advanced, 130 ft (39.6 m) for PADI's recreational ceiling. Decompression schedules use either unit, but mixing them mid-dive is a textbook error.

Flight level feet to meters

Commercial pilots talk in feet. ICAO standardised feet for altitude in the 1950s, when US and UK aviation set the early international norms; the standard stuck even as most countries converted everything else to metric. Cruise altitudes sit between FL310 (31,000 ft / 9,449 m) and FL410 (41,000 ft / 12,497 m), with FL350 (35,000 ft / 10,668 m) the textbook long-haul level.

Two big exceptions remain: China and North Korea use metres for altitude. Russia switched to feet for international flights in 2011 after years of incident reports linked to unit mismatch. The most-cited case is the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision over Lake Constance, where a Russian Tu-154 and a DHL Boeing 757 collided after a chain of failures that included differences in altitude unit handling between the Russian crew and Swiss air traffic control.

US survey foot retirement

For 130 years the United States used two slightly different feet. The international foot, fixed at 0.3048 m in 1959, governed everyday measurements. The US survey foot, defined as 1200/3937 m (about 0.30480061 m), governed land surveys and State Plane Coordinate Systems. The gap is 2 parts per million — about 2 mm per mile. Over a 50-mile township section, the two definitions differ by roughly 10 cm.

NIST and NOAA jointly retired the US survey foot on 1 January 2023. The international foot is now the single US standard. Legacy survey data still in survey feet remains valid for historical purposes, but new work uses the international foot. NIST published transition guidance and conversion tables for engineering and survey software.

Mental math: feet to meters shortcuts

Multiply by 0.3 for a quick feet-to-metres estimate. 10 ft × 0.3 = 3 m (true: 3.048, error 1.6%). For higher accuracy, multiply by 0.305 — 10 ft × 0.305 = 3.05 m, correct to within 0.001 m. Going the other way, multiply metres by 3.3 for a fast result: 2 m × 3.3 = 6.6 ft (true: 6.562 ft, error 0.6%).

Anchors that help: 3 ft is just under a metre (0.91 m). A metre is just over 3 ft 3 in. A doorframe (7 ft) is about 2.13 m. A typical adult height (5 ft 10 in) is just under 1.8 m. A double-decker bus (14 ft) is about 4.3 m. Once you internalise three or four anchors, mental conversions stay within 2% across normal scales.

Common feet to meters mistakes

Three slips dominate. First, mixing 5 ft 5 in with 5.5 ft. They are different: 5.5 ft means 5 ft 6 in (because 0.5 ft = 6 in), while 5 ft 5 in equals 5.417 ft. Second, treating areas linearly. 1000 sq ft is 92.9 m², not 304.8 m². Third, forgetting the survey vs international foot distinction in pre-2023 US survey data — usually invisible, but enough to misplace a property line by centimetres on a long boundary.

• 1 ft = 0.3048 m exactly (1959 international foot)
• 1 m = 3.28084 ft, or 3 ft 3.37 in
• 6 ft = 1.8288 m, the cultural threshold height in the US
• 8 ft = 2.44 m, the classic US ceiling height
• 10 ft = 3.048 m, a high ceiling
• 33 ft = 10.06 m, where diving pressure doubles
• 1 sq ft = 0.0929 m², not 0.3048 m²
• 35,000 ft = 10,668 m, long-haul cruise altitude FL350
• US survey foot retired 1 January 2023