There is more than one type of Nautical Mile
There are a few different types of Nautical Mile. On this site we have conversions for US Nautical miles, UK Nautical miles and International Nautical miles. Please either select the appropriate unit on the selection above of click the required unit in the links below:
What is a nautical mile?
A nautical mile is the unit of distance at sea and in the air, and is exactly 1,852 meters. It began as one minute of latitude along any meridian, which varies slightly because the Earth is not a perfect sphere, so a fixed length was agreed internationally.
Latitude is the reason for the length: a degree has 60 minutes, so a nautical mile is a sixtieth of a degree and 21,600 of them go round the Earth. That makes the latitude scale on a chart a distance scale too. Territorial waters extend up to 12 nautical miles from a coast.
What is a yard?
A yard is 3 feet or 36 inches. In the US you mostly see it on football fields, which run 100 yards between the goal lines, and in the UK short road distances are still signed in yards.
The yard is traditionally the distance from the nose of King Henry I of England to the thumb of his outstretched arm, though its length varied from place to place for centuries. It was only fixed internationally in 1959, at exactly 0.9144 meters.
Nearly every other country uses the meter instead. In the US, bulk soil and mulch are still sold by the cubic yard, which is 27 cubic feet.