Meters to Centimeters

Metric tape measures are printed in centimeters, with a meter mark every hundred, so a room described as 3.6 m long reads as 360 cm on the tape. Builders and kitchen fitters usually go one step further and talk in millimeters, but for furniture, curtains and most home projects centimeters are the working unit.

Typical sizes make good anchors. A door frame of 2 m is 200 cm high, and standard door leaves in Germany are 198.5 or 211 cm tall. A standard bed is 2 m, or 200 cm, long. A kitchen worktop at 0.9 m is 90 cm above the floor, and a desk at 0.75 m is 75 cm.

Pediatric growth charts and school records outside the US use centimeters, but parents often think in meters: a child of 1.2 m is 120 cm, and the next mark on the wall at 1.25 m is 125 cm. Ski and snowboard lengths are chosen by height in centimeters, so a skier of 1.7 m, 170 cm, would typically look at skis between about 155 and 175 cm.

Bicycle frames in Europe are sized in centimeters of seat-tube length, and the rider's inseam in meters has to be converted first: an inseam of 0.82 m is 82 cm.

1.05 m and 1.5 m look alike but differ by 45 cm: the first is 105 cm and the second 150 cm. Write the meter value with two decimal places, then drop the point: 1.50 m is 150 cm. The meter itself has been defined by the speed of light since 1983, so the factor of 100 is exact.

To convert back, open centimeters to meters; for inches and feet use the unit converter.