Metrication

Metrication, or metrification, is the process of converting from the various other systems of units used throughout the world to the metric or SI (Système International) system. This process was begun in France in the 1790's and spread over the following two centuries to all but four countries, representing 95% of the world's population. The process was completed in most of the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, replacing numerous historical weights and measures. The countries of the former British Empire completed metrification during the second half of the 20th century, with Ireland recently completing metrication on 20th January 2005. Today only the UK, U.S., Liberia and Burma (Myanmar) have not fully metricated, although Liberia and Myanmar use it in practice and the UK is currently in the process of conversion. Only France, the US, UK and Japan saw any large scale popular opposition to metrication, the main objections being based on tradition, aesthetics and distaste for a 'foreign' system.

Adoption

The metric system, developed in France around the turn of the 19th century, was quickly taken up by Europe's scientists before spreading to traders and industrialists and finally to the common people. France's neighbours, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, changed in 1820. Spain and its former American colonies changed in the 1850s and '60s. Italy and Germany went metric after their respective unifications in 1861 and 1871, followed shortly by Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Austria and Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. By 1900 thirty-nine countries in Europe and Latin America used the metric system.

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The first Asian nations to convert were Mongolia (1918), Cambodia and Afghanistan (1920s). Japan began its slow conversion process in 1891 when it received a copy of the meter standard from the Institute in France. In 1924 the government decided to fully replace the traditional shaku-kan system within ten years, however, public opposition delayed implementation. The U.S. occupation of the late 1940s briefly caused a de facto conversion to U.S. customary units. Metrication was completed in Japan by 1969. India's conversion was far quicker, paradoxically helped by low popular literacy and the fact that there was previously no nationwide standard measurement system — British Imperial units were used by the upper class, while various regional systems were used by the poor. From 1956 to 1961 India simultaneously changed to metric and decimalised their currency.

Related Topics:
U.S. customary units - Imperial unit

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China began conversion in the 1920s, but the process was not completed until communist times. China also took the unusual step of decimalising their native measurement units and redefining them as even amounts of metric units. Thus jin was redefined to equal 500 grams. The Soviet Union changed from traditional units to metric in 1924.

Related Topics:
Jin - Soviet Union - Traditional units

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The Arab nations were early adopters of the system. Algeria changed in 1840, Tunisia in 1890, followed by most of the others in the 1920s. Jordan was the last to convert in the 1950s. The German colonies of Rwanda and Burundi and the Belgian colony of Zaire were the first sub-Saharan African states to go metric in 1910. French territories in Africa were de facto metric while under French rule. On independence all gradually passed official metric weights and measures laws during the 1950s and '60s. The last African states to go metric were the former British colonies of southern and eastern Africa.

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Britain and its former colonies began their conversion process in the later part of the 20th century. South Africa began a ten-year process of metrication in 1967 with the creation of Metrication Advisory Board, a Metrication Department and a South African Bureau of Standards. Australia began work in 1969 with a publicity campaign involving lecture tours, theatrical advertisements and the free distribution of metric-sized items, including calendars, rulers and A4-sized leaflets. Public opposition was on points of detail only, and the process was declared completed in 1977. Canada and New Zealand followed similar plans in the 1970s. Ireland completed a very gradual changeover process on 20 January 2005 with the conversion of road speed limits to km/h. Ireland began metrication in 1970 when schools switched to teaching only the metric system.

Related Topics:
Australia - Canada - Speed limit

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