units of measurement in surveying

Land Surveying operations involve both angular and linear measurements and the most employed units used by Land Surveyors are units of length, area, volume and angle.

There are two Systems of units: The metric system and the English system. The metric system is also called the International System of Units (SI) In the English system, the basic unit for linear measurements in land surveying is the foot. The metric system uses the meter. There is a slight difference between the US Survey feet and the International feet. The difference is approximately 1 foot per 100 miles.

The U.S. Survey Foot is defined as 0.30480060960125017024227597…meters, while the International Foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 meters.

In Land Surveying land surveyors perform a wide variety of field work from geodetic surveys to construction work. That is why the knowledge of the various systems of units and the relation between them is so important.

The table bellow shows conversion factors used in land surveying. Note that the first column alphabetically orders the rows of the table.