Rods to Feet Converter
| Rods | Feet | The ladder |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16.5 | the plowman's goad |
| 4 | 66 | one Gunter chain |
| 40 | 660 | one furlong |
| 160 | 2640 | two furlongs |
| 320 | 5280 | the statute mile |
A rod is sixteen and a half feet - the medieval plowman's goad length, frozen into the land system as the acre's other half: forty rods make a furlong, four make a chain, and a strip forty rods by four rods is exactly one acre. Type either number and the converter lands the other.
The unit answers to three names - rod, pole and perch - which are the same sixteen and a half feet wearing different dialects, and it outlived almost every neighbor: county deeds, cemetery plots, farm drainage plans and American colonial land grants still measure in rods. The table runs the ladder from one rod to the mile's 320.
How to use
- Type the rods from a deed or field plan - feet appear instantly, or run the reverse.
- Read the table for the ladder: four rods to the chain, forty to the furlong, 320 to the statute mile.
- Area rows multiply through: 160 square rods is one acre, so a 40-by-4-rod field and a chain-by-furlong strip are the same 43,560 square feet.
Frequently asked questions
Why is a rod 16.5 feet?
Because the acre demanded it. The traditional acre was a furlong long by four rods wide - 660 by 16.5 feet, 43,560 square feet exactly - and the rod is the width that makes that work with whole furlong arithmetic. The length itself is older folklore: the goad or pole a team driver carried, standardized by the unavoidable geometry of plowed fields rather than by decree.
Are rod, pole and perch the same unit?
Yes - three names, one length. Perch is the oldest (Latin pertica), pole is the common English dialect, and rod won in American surveying. Deeds mix them freely: a boundary may read 40 perches in one sentence and 10 rods in the next, meaning the identical 660 feet. Any of the three converts here the same way.
How many rods in a mile or furlong?
Forty rods to the furlong and 320 to the statute mile, since the furlong is an eighth of a mile. The rod sits one step below the chain (four rods) and one step above the link-free body lengths - it is the pace at which plowmen and surveyors actually counted, which is why the ladder was built around it rather than the other way around.
Is the rod still a legal unit?
Wherever old documents govern: US state statutes keep the rod defined for land description, colonial-era grants and cemetery plots pass title in perches, and the Public Land Survey's field notes are full of rods and chains. New surveys run in feet and meters, but converting the archive is a live task - deed by deed, rod by rod.
What is a square rod?
One rod by one rod - 272.25 square feet - and 160 of them make exactly one acre. Old farm listings and orchard plans price land in square rods or perches for that reason; converting area is this page's linear answer squared, with the acre as the 160-step landing.