Centimeters ⇄ Feet + Inches Converter

A height written as 180 cm on a European passport and as 5 feet 11 inches on an American one is the same person, and the difference between the two notations is not rounding, it is two different units of length expressed in two different number systems. The centimeters-to-feet converter resolves the dual notation in both directions: type a length in centimeters and the page shows feet, inches, the combined feet-and-inches form (e.g. 5' 10.87"), metres, millimetres, yards, and decimal feet; type a length in feet and inches and the page shows the same length to whatever precision you need. The conversion rests on two exact international definitions, 1 inch = 2.54 cm and 1 foot = 30.48 cm, so the result is exact to the digits displayed, with no measurement uncertainty to budget for.

How to use this converter

1. Pick the input mode. The dropdown at the top of the tool switches between "Centimetres → (cm drives all read-outs)" and "Feet + Inches → (cm derived)". If you are reading a European measurement, leave the tool on centimeters; if you are reading an American measurement, switch to feet + inches.
2. Type into the source field. Enter centimeters (for example, 180) and every bonus read-out updates instantly. Enter feet in the second field and inches in the third (for example, 5 and 10) and the centimetres field is computed from 5 × 30.48 + 10 × 2.54 = 177.8 cm exactly.
3. Watch the result panel. The headline row prints the same length in both notations: ${cm} cm = ${ft' in.XX"} (${decimal_ft} ft). The "show your work" line writes the full multiplication against the exact 30.48 cm/ft constant so you can audit the math.
4. Read the bonus rows. Below the headline, six cards show the same length in millimetres, yards, decimal feet, decimal inches, metres, and the combined feet-and-inches form. Each card carries the exact constant it relies on (1 cm = 10 mm, 1 yd = 91.44 cm, etc.).
5. Use a preset if you want. The preset row under the inputs gives you the canonical test cases: 1 cm, 30.48 cm = 1 ft, 100 cm = 1 m, 152.4 cm = 5 ft, 180 cm (≈ 5' 11"), and 200 cm (≈ 6' 7"). Each preset is hand-verified.
6. Copy the result. Three copy buttons put the centimetres value, the feet+inches string, or the combined cm = ft' in.XX" line on your clipboard.

The feet and inches inputs are clamped to 0 to 11.99 inches so the bonus rows never print a value like "5 ft 14 in". If you type 12 inches, that is one foot, adjust the feet field instead.

The formulas

Every conversion on this page comes from three exact international definitions and no measurement.

Centimeters to feet (decimal): ft = cm / 30.48 exactly. The 30.48 cm factor is the legal definition of the international foot, set by the 1 July 1959 international yard and pound agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. NIST SP 811 and the BIPM SI Brochure (9th ed., §2.3.3) both reproduce the figure.

Centimeters to inches (decimal): in = cm / 2.54 exactly. The 2.54 cm factor is the legal definition of the international inch, signed on the same date as the foot. The inch follows from the foot: 1 in = 30.48 cm / 12 = 2.54 cm exactly.

Feet to centimeters (whole, without an inches fraction): cm = ft × 30.48 exactly.

Feet + inches to centimeters: cm = ft × 30.48 + in × 2.54 exactly. The reverse of the line above.

Centimeters to feet + inches (the combined read-out on the page): whole_ft = floor(cm / 30.48); remainder_in = (cm / 30.48 − whole_ft) × 12. The page presents two decimals of an inch, the everyday precision for height charts, tailoring, and athletic stats.

The bonus rows use the same exact chain: metres = cm / 100 (1 m = 100 cm by SI definition), millimetres = cm × 10 (1 cm = 10 mm by SI definition), yards = cm / 91.44 (1 yd = 3 ft = 91.44 cm exactly by the 1959 agreement). Because every constant is a definition rather than a measured value, the read-outs carry no uncertainty beyond the digits displayed.

Worked examples

Reading a passport. Your passport lists your height as 178 cm and you want to communicate it on an American medical form that asks for feet and inches. Enter 178 cm; the page prints 5 ft 10.08 in (5' 10.08") and 5.8399 ft in decimal. If you want it to two decimals of an inch, copy the 5' 10.08" string directly. The math reads 178 / 30.48 = 5.8398950131 ft, then 5 ft + 0.8398950131 × 12 in = 10.078740157 in, rounded to 10.08 in.

Filling out a US driver's license form. A form asks for height in feet and inches in 1/4-inch increments. You measure 175 cm. Enter 175 cm; the page shows 5 ft 8.90 in. Round 8.90 to 9, and you write 5' 9". The difference between 5' 8.90" and 5' 9" is exactly 0.10 in, or about 2.5 mm, well below the 1/4-inch form precision, so the rounding is safe.

Asking how tall a 6-foot person is in centimeters. Switch the input mode to feet + inches, enter 6 and 0. The page reports 182.88 cm exactly. The arithmetic is 6 × 30.48 = 182.88. For 5' 10", the page reports 177.8 cm exactly: 5 × 30.48 + 10 × 2.54 = 152.4 + 25.4 = 177.8. Both are exact because both factors are exact.

Converting a child's height for a school record. A school record shows 4 ft 9 in (= 144.78 cm exactly) and the family wants to share the figure with relatives in Europe. Enter 4 ft 9 in. The page reports 144.78 cm, 1.4478 m, and 56.999... in (decimal). The reverse direction is also handy: the doctor took 1.42 m and the school record wants feet, enter 142 cm and the page reports 4 ft 7.91 in.

A length in yards. A sports field is 100 yards long. Enter 100 yards, get 9144 cm, 91.44 m, 300 ft, 3600 in. The yard definition is 1 yd = 3 ft = 91.44 cm exactly, so all four read-outs are exact to the digits shown.

A tape measure in inches. A machinist working in millimetres measures a finished bore at 45.72 cm and the part drawing calls for it in inches. Enter 45.72 cm; the page reads 18 in exactly (because 45.72 / 2.54 = 18.0) and 1.5 ft. The exact form is useful here: the part drawing rounds to the nearest 0.001 in, and 18.000 in is the cleanest possible answer.

Where the conversion shows up

People's heights are the most common single use, passports, driver's licenses, medical charts, school records, sports rosters, immigration forms, and dating-app profiles all need to round-trip between 180 cm and 5' 11". A second cluster is furniture and home goods: an IKEA flat-pack carton is labelled in millimetres, but the room you want to put it in is measured in feet and inches, and the gap between the two conventions catches people on a near-daily basis during a move. A third cluster is clothing and tailoring: a tailor's tape measure in inches alongside a customer's body measurements in centimetres, or a sewing pattern drafted in inches against a fabric width measured in centimetres.

Beyond those everyday uses, the conversion matters in architecture and construction (drawings in mm vs site measurements in ft + in), in aviation (altitudes and runway lengths in feet vs metric equivalents for international pilots), in marine navigation (depth soundings in feet vs metres on charts), in sports (basketball reach in inches vs vertical-jump measurements in cm), in cycling (frame sizes in cm vs saddle heights in inches), in surveying (US geodetic datum in feet vs metric elevations on USGS maps), and in manufacturing (tolerance specifications in inches vs verification measurements taken in millimetres). It is also the conversion that comes up most often on a phone's measurement app, which defaults to the unit of the country but flips instantly when the user touches the toggle.

Common mistakes

The first mistake is mixing rounded and exact. A typical online "conversion" of 180 cm says 5.9 ft. The exact value is 5.90551181102 ft, and 5.9 ft is 0.0055 ft (about 0.066 in, or 1.7 mm) short. On a height that does not matter; on a machine part that may. This converter rounds only at the display step and shows the exact constant beneath, so it is harder to confuse the two.

The second mistake is treating the foot and the inch as if they were independent. They are not, 1 ft = 12 in exactly, and the "feet + inches" form is a single number written in two parts. If you get 5 ft 10.87 in and round to 5 ft 11 in, then convert that rounded value back to centimeters, you get 180.34 cm. The actual 5 ft 10.87 in is 179.81 cm. That 0.5 cm gap is the rounding reappearing.

The third mistake is assuming the cm → ft factor is 30.5. Some older conversion tables used 30.5 cm per foot, which is wrong by 0.065%, about 2 mm per foot. The legal figure is 30.48 cm exactly, and that is what this converter uses. The 1959 agreement standardised the figure for the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and NIST SP 811 codifies it.

The fourth mistake is forgetting the international vs US survey distinction. The US uses two slightly different feet: the international foot (30.48 cm exactly, this converter) and the US survey foot (1200/3937 m = 30.48006096... cm, used for geodetic surveying in some US states). The difference is about 2 parts per million, invisible at human scale but it accumulates across miles. This converter uses the international foot, which is what 99% of consumer and engineering contexts need.

The fifth mistake is silently swapping centimetres and inches. A 50 cm tailor's tape and a 50 in tailor's tape are physically similar (a 50 cm tape is 19.7 in, a 50 in tape is 127 cm) but the labels are easy to confuse if the unit is not printed clearly. Always read the unit, and copy the read-out from this converter as a string that includes both the value and the unit.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many feet is 180 centimeters?

180 cm = 180 / 30.48 = 5.90551181102 ft exactly, which formats as 5' 10.87" (5 feet 10.87 inches) to the everyday 2-decimal-inch precision. To convert in your head, divide by 30, that gives 6.0 ft, which is 0.094 ft (about 1.13 in) too high. The 30.48 cm constant is exact (NIST SP 811, 1959 international yard and pound agreement), so the only source of error is display rounding.

How many centimeters is 6 feet?

6 ft = 6 × 30.48 = 182.88 cm exactly. The foot is defined as 30.48 cm by international agreement, so any whole number of feet converts to a whole number of millimeters (and a centimetres figure with two decimals). For 6 ft 1 in, the answer is 6 × 30.48 + 1 × 2.54 = 182.88 + 2.54 = 185.42 cm exactly.

Is 5 feet 10 inches tall in centimeters?

5 ft 10 in = 5 × 30.48 + 10 × 2.54 = 152.4 + 25.4 = 177.8 cm exactly. 177.8 cm is the internationally-accepted metric equivalent of 5' 10" and is what sports federations, military medical records, and passport offices use. The conversion carries no rounding because both inputs (5 ft and 10 in) and both factors (30.48 and 2.54) are exact.

Why is 1 inch exactly 2.54 cm?

On 1 July 1959 the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa signed the international yard and pound agreement, which redefined the international yard as exactly 0.9144 metres. The international foot is one third of that yard (so 0.3048 m exactly) and the international inch is one twelfth of that foot (so 0.0254 m = 2.54 cm exactly). The agreement replaced several older national feet and inches that had drifted apart by as much as 0.05%. The 2.54 cm figure is now codified by NIST SP 811, the BIPM SI Brochure (9th ed., §2.3.3), and the UK Weights and Measures Act 1985.

What is 6 feet in centimeters and meters?

6 ft = 182.88 cm exactly, or 1.8288 m exactly. To convert in your head, take 6 ft, multiply by 30 (180 cm) and add 6 × 0.48 (2.88 cm) = 182.88 cm. The m conversion is then ÷ 100 (because 1 m = 100 cm exactly by SI). Both factors are exact, so the answer is exact.

How do I convert centimeters to feet and inches for a height chart?

Take the cm value, divide by 30.48 to get feet (decimal). The whole number is the feet, and the decimal part multiplied by 12 is the inches. For 175 cm: 175 / 30.48 = 5.74146981627 ft. The whole feet is 5; the remainder is 0.74146981627 ft × 12 = 8.8976377953 in. Round to 2 decimals of an inch for everyday use: 5 ft 8.90 in. The "feet + inches" formatting on this page rounds to 2 decimals of an inch, which is the standard precision for height charts and athletic stats.

How accurate is centimeters to feet conversion?

It is exact. The 2.54 cm/in and 30.48 cm/ft factors are legal definitions, not measured values, so the conversion carries no measurement uncertainty. The only loss of precision is the display-rounding step, which this converter shows to 5 decimals of feet (or 2 decimals of an inch for the combined form). For most practical work, height, body measurements, furniture, room dimensions, 2 decimals of an inch (about 0.5 mm) is well below the precision of the original measurement and far below what tape measures can resolve.

Is 1 meter 100 cm?

Yes, exactly. The metre is the SI base unit of length (since 1799, with the 1983 redefinition in terms of the speed of light, preserved by the 2019 SI redefinition). The centi- prefix denotes one hundredth, so 1 cm = 0.01 m exactly, or equivalently 1 m = 100 cm exactly. The metre's definition has changed three times (original 1799 bar, 1889 prototype, 1960 krypton wavelength, 1983/2019 speed of light) but 1 m = 100 cm has held throughout, because the centi- prefix is a definition of the centimetre, not a measurement.

Can I use this converter for clothing sizes?

Yes, for length measurements. A chest measurement of 100 cm = 39.37 in (and 3 ft 3.37 in), and that conversion is exact. What the converter cannot do for you is translate a nominal "size" (S/M/L, 38/40/42, UK vs US) between sizing systems, those are vanity sizes and brand-specific, not a fixed centimetre conversion. Always work from an actual body measurement in cm, then convert with this tool.

What is 5'4" in cm?

5 ft 4 in = 5 × 30.48 + 4 × 2.54 = 152.4 + 10.16 = 162.56 cm exactly. So 5' 4" is 162.56 cm, or 1.6256 m. To convert in your head, multiply 5 ft by 30 cm (150 cm) and 4 in by 2.5 cm (10 cm), then add 5 × 0.48 = 2.40 cm and 4 × 0.04 = 0.16 cm for the small corrections: 162.56 cm. The corrected figure is exact.

How do I convert centimeters to feet in Excel or Google Sheets?

In a cell, use the formula =A1/30.48 where A1 holds the centimetres value. To get the combined feet + inches form, use =INT(A1/30.48)&"' "&ROUND((A1/30.48-INT(A1/30.48))*12,2)&"""". Watch the escaping: in Excel, two double quotes inside a string literal "" produce one double quote. The 30.48 constant is exact (NIST SP 811), so the result is exact to the rounding option you choose.

q: can the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter be used for professional or commercial purposes?

A: Yes, the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter provides mathematically correct results that are suitable for professional, commercial, and educational use. For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, For high-stakes applications (medical, legal, financial), verify results with a domain expert. For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter formulas used are well-established and validated against reference standards.

For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, How often are the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter formulas updated?

A: the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter formulas are based on established scientific, mathematical, or industry-standard references and rarely require updates. When standards change (e.g., new physical constants, revised tax brackets, updated standards), the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter is updated to reflect the current authoritative source. For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, Each calculator's references section lists the specific sources used.

References

• NIST Special Publication 811, Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI). For the Centimeters to Feet + Inches Converter, National Institute of Standards and Technology. Authoritative source for the exact 2.54 cm = 1 in and 30.48 cm = 1 ft factors, and the SI handling of the centi- prefix.
• BIPM SI Brochure (9th edition, 2019, §2.3.3). Bureau International des Poids et Mesures. The SI's defining document; supersedes prior editions and codifies the international yard and pound agreement's factor under the modern SI.
• International yard and pound agreement, signed 1 July 1959 by the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The political and standards-bodies instrument that fixed the international yard at exactly 0.9144 m, and by extension the foot at 0.3048 m and the inch at 0.0254 m, replacing the older national definitions that had drifted apart by up to 0.05%.
• UK Weights and Measures Act 1985, Sections 1 and 3. Codifies the international yard, foot, and inch as the legal units of length for the United Kingdom.
• ASTM SI10, Standard for Use of the International System of Units (SI). American Society for Testing and Materials. The US national-adoption standard for the SI; reproduces the 30.48 cm and 2.54 cm factors and gives the precise wording for use in engineering specifications.