Countries around the world have different ways of measuring miles. These miles refer to measurements of distance over land. The most common measurement of distance over land is the kilometer, which measures distance in units of 1,000 and uses the meter as the standard of measurement. The "mile" has a different distance in the countries of Austria, Prussia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Brunswick, Germany, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands.
The United Kingdom and the United States share the same measure for a mile, which originally was decreed by Queen Elizabeth I of England to be 5,280 feet in length. The statute mile gets its name from this official decree, which the U.S. Congress also enacted as an official unit of measurement for the country. The statute mile measures distance over land, and is one quarter of an inch in length longer than the international mile.
Nautical miles apply specifically to aquatic navigation. Nautical miles are 6,080 feet in length. This method of measurement derives from trigonometry, and uses the length of one minute's arc around the circumference of the Earth as the base standard of measurement. Nautical miles are a slightly inconsistent unit of measurement because the Earth is not perfectly spherical, but rather has an elliptical shape with the greatest bulge at the equator.
The United States established the official length of the nautical mile to be 6,080.2 feet, which is 1,853.249 meters, in the 1800s. The United Kingdom, in contrast, established the Admiralty nautical mile to be 6,080 feet precisely, which works out to be 1,853.184 meters in length. The nautical mile has an internationally agreed-upon length of 1,852 meters. The nautical miles is not a measurement of speed over water, however. The unit of measure for this is the knot, which is one nautical mile per hour.
