Centimetre facts for kids
A centimetre (the American spelling is centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI) measurement system. It is equal to one hundredth of a metre. Centi- is placed in front to say 'a hundredth'. The centimetre is the base unit of length in the old centimetre-gram-second (CGS) system of units.
The centimetre is usually used to measure things that are too big for millimetres but too small for metres. A centimetre is close to the length of a fingernail.
Similarities to other units of length
1 centimetre is equal to:
- 10 millimetres
- 0.01 metre (1 metre is equal to 100 centimetres)
- about 0.393700787401575 inch (1 inch is equal to 2.54 centimetres)
1 cubic centimetre is equal to 1 millilitre, under the SI system of units.
Uses of centimetre
The centimetre is also used:
- sometimes, to measure how much rain has fallen into a rain gauge;
- for heights of people, especially athletes, in metric nations;
- in maps, centimetres are used to change from map scale to real-world scale of landscapes (kilometres).
Unicode symbols
The centimetre has Unicode symbols so it can be written in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters.
- centimetre (㎝) - code 339D
- square centimetre (㎠) - code 33A0
- cubic centimetre (㎤) - code 33A4
They are placed into one character, and it is mostly used with East Asian fonts.
See also
In Spanish: Centímetro para niños
