What is the circumference of the planet Earth?
59216757#10
Both the metre and the nautical mile were originally defined as a subdivision of the Earth's circumference; today the circumference around the poles is almost exactly 40,000 km and 360 × 60 nautical miles long.
Earth's circumference
59216757#2
In modern times it has been used to define fundamental units of measurement of length – the nautical mile in the seventeenth century and the metre in the eighteenth. Earth's polar circumference is almost exactly 40,000 km because the metre was originally calibrated on this measurement (1/10-millionth of the distance between the poles and the equator), which is almost exactly 21,600 nautical miles (being defined as one minute of a degree – i.e. 360 multiplied by 60).
Earth's circumference
59216757#0
Earth's circumference is the distance around the Earth, either around the equator () or around the poles ().
Earth's circumference