What is the difference between 1 nautical mile and 1 mile?

Answer 1

A nautical mile, 6076.11549 feet, is one minute of latitude. Some define it as a minute of longitude at the equator, which is as nearly the same as made little difference (about 4 feet) until GPS came in and permitted pinpoint accuracy in navigation. A land mile, of course, is 5,280 feet. Why did our ancestors choose such ridiculous numbers as 360, 5280 and so on? Because they didn't use decimals. They needed numbers which could be divided by as many other numbers as possible. Just try working out the factors of 5280! 1 international nautical mile = 1852 metres precisely. This is the definition used in most, if not all, modern circumstances. It's not an SI unit, but is used universally for shipping and aviation, and so 'tolerated' by the SI system. After all, even the SI fanatics can't change the diameter of the earth. Though they can have a good try. Originally, a metre was one ten-millionth of the length of a line from the North Pole to the Equator along the meridian of Paris. Neat. Since then, the meter has gone through various definitions, including the length of an iridium rod kept in paris. Now it is defined as the distance light in a vacuum travels in a 299,792,458th of a second.

Answer 2

MileThe statute mile of 5,280 feet (about 1,609 m), or 63,360 inches.

The international nautical mile of exactly 1,852 m (about 6,076 feet).

mile

Answer 3

One nautical mile is defined by one latitude minute of arc (there are 60 such minutes to a degree). This equals 1852 meters, and roughly (but coincidentally) 2000 yards or 6000 feet (technically, a standard nautical mile is 6076 feet, 6000 feet and 2000 yards are commonly used approximations, but produce an error of about 1%).

The statute mile had a little fuzzier definition to start with, as one mile was the same as 1000 roman paces/steps. The definition has since changed, but one statute mile equals about 1609 meters.

Further information on the definition and use of the word mile is given on Wikipedia.

It is worth noting that in the the Wikipedia article there is an alternative expression to "nautical mile" given as "sea mile", care should be taken with this usage, as a Norwegian "sea mile" equals 4 nautical miles.

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Answer 4

nautical miles is more prone to be used in the calculations on oceans. whereas miles on the other hand, has two meanings. one would be the calcaulations of the dinstance for a certain destination and the other would be a guy called miles.

Answer 5

A nautical mile is used when on oceans while land miles are used on land.