Centimetre

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**1 centimetre** =
SI units
10×10⁻³ m	10 mm
US customary / Imperial units
32.81×10⁻³ ft	0.39370 in

A carpenters' ruler with centimetre divisions

A centimetre (American spelling: centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one hundredth of a metre, which is the current SI base unit of length. Centi is the SI prefix for a factor of 10 $- 2$ .^[1] Hence a centimetre can be written as 10×10 $- 3$ m (engineering notation) or 1 E-2 m (scientific E notation) — meaning 10 × 1 mm or 1 m / 100 respectively. The centimetre is the base unit of length in the now deprecated centimetre-gram-second system of units.

Though for many physical quantities, SI prefixes for factors of 10³ - like milli and kilo - are often preferred by technicians, the centimetre remains a practical unit of length for many everyday measurements. A centimetre is approximately the width of the fingernail of an adult person.

1 Equivalence to other units of length
2 Uses of centimetre
3 Unicode symbols
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Equivalence to other units of length

1 centimetre is equal to:

0.01 metres, which can be represented by 1.00 E-2 m (1 metre is equal to 100 centimeters)
about 0.393700787401575 inches (1 inch is equal to 2.54 centimetres exactly) ^[2]

1 cubic centimetre is equal to 1 millilitre, under the current SI system of units.

[edit] Uses of centimetre

In addition to its use in the measurement of length, the centimeter is used:

sometimes, to report the level of rainfall as measured by a rain gauge ^[3]
in the CGS system, the centimetre is used to measure capacitance, where 1 cm of capacitance = 1.113×10 $- 12$ Farad ^[4]
in Canadian maps, centimetres are used to make conversions from map scale to real world scale (kilometers)