A furlong (abbreviated fur) is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one-eighth of a mile, equivalent to any of 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods or perches, 10 chains, or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where it is used to measure rural field lengths and distances specifically in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. In the United States, some states use older definitions for surveying purposes, leading to variations in the length of the furlong of two parts per million, or about 0.4 millimetres (1⁄64 inch). This variation is small enough to not have practical consequences in most applications. Using the international definition of the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, one furlong is 201.168 metres, and five furlongs are about 1 kilometre (1.00584 km exactly).
History The name furlong derives from the Old English words furh (furrow) and lang (long). Dating back at least to early Anglo-Saxon times, it originally referred to the length of the furrow in one acre of a ploughed open field (a medieval communal field which was divided into strips). The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains. The system of long furrows arose because turning a team of oxen pulling a heavy plough was difficult. This offset the drainage advantages of short furrows and meant furrows were made as long as possible. An acre is an area that is one furlong long and one chain (66 feet or 22 yards) wide. For this reason, the furlong was once also called an acre's length, though in modern usage an area of one acre can be of any shape. The term furlong, or shot, was also used to describe a grouping of adjacent strips within an open field. Among the early Anglo-Saxons, the rod was the fundamental unit of land measurement. A furlong was 40 rods; an acre 4 by 40 rods, or 4 rods by 1 furlong, and thus 160 square rods; there are 10 acres in a square furlong. At the time, the Saxons used the North German foot, which was about 10 percent longer than the foot of the international 1959 agreement. When England changed to a shorter foot in the late 13th century, rods and furlongs remained unchanged, since property boundaries were already defined in rods and furlongs. The only thing that changed was the number of feet and yards in a rod or a furlong, and the number of square feet and square yards in an acre. The definition of the rod went from 15 old feet to 16+1⁄2 new feet, or from 5 old yards to 5+1⁄2 new yards. The furlong went from 600 old feet to 660 new feet, or from 200 old yards to 220 new yards. The acre went from 36,000 old square feet to 43,560 new square feet, or from 4,000 old square yards to 4,840 new square yards. The furlong was historically viewed as being equivalent to the Roman stade (stadium). In the Roman system, there were 625 feet to the stadium, eight stadia to the mile, and 1½ miles to the league. A league was considered to be the distance a man could walk in one hour, and the mile (from mille, meaning "thousand") consisted of 1,000 passus (paces, five feet, or double-step). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, medieval Europe continued with the Roman system, which the people proceeded to diversify, leading to serious complications in trade, taxation, etc. Around the year 1300, by royal decree, England standardized a long list of measures. Among the important units of distance and length at the time were the foot, yard, rod (or pole), furlong, and the mile. The rod was defined as 5+1⁄2 yards or 16+1⁄2 feet, and the mile was eight furlongs, so the definition of the furlong became 40 rods and that of the mile became 5,280 feet (eight furlongs/mile times 40 rods/furlong times 16+1⁄2 feet/rod). The invention of the measuring chain in the 1620s led to the introduction of an intermediate unit of length, the chain of 22 yards, being equal to four rods, and to one-tenth of a furlong. A description from 1675 states, "Dimensurator or Measuring Instrument whereof the mosts usual has been the Chain, and the common length for English Measures four Poles, as answering indifferently to the Englishs Mile and Acre, 10 such Chains in length making a Furlong, and 10 single square Chains an Acre, so that a square Mile contains 640 square Acres." The official use of the furlong was abolished in the United Kingdom under the Weights and Measures Act 1985, an act that also abolished the official use of many other traditional units of measurement.
Use
In Myanmar furlongs are currently used in conjunction with miles to indicate distances on highway signs. Mileposts on the Yangon–Mandalay Expressway use miles and furlongs.
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