That's not the case in the European and Southamerican countries I've visited or have acquaintances in. What countries do you have in mind? I'm quite interested.
Imperial units (specifically, feet) are dominant in aviation to measure flight altitude. Despite a recommendation of ICAO to use SI units since 1979, only China, Mongolia and a few former-USSR countries (not Russia) use metres to define flight levels. [0]
This leads to two interesting consequences for aircraft that perform international flights from/to China: [1]
- they need to be equipped with two altimetry systems;
- they need to perform small climbs or descents when entering or leaving Chinese airspace, as metric flight levels do not usually match Imperial ones (flight levels are defined by round numbers).
You can find occasional uses in many countries. TV screens are advertised in inches here in Denmark, although I noticed the last one I bought was "34 inch, 86.00cm" in the detailed specification -- the inches were just marketing. Old water pipes have some sort of pre-metric size.
Several countries (e.g. France) use the word pound (livre) to mean 500g, which could confuse visitors into thinking something non-metric is being used. I noticed that in south America.
Most countries still use inches for wheel sizes, for example.
These are basically “sizes” that are imperial by tradition/accident more than people using them as measurement. If I wear size 32 waist jeans is that imperial? Maybe. I’m not measuring I’m just using it as a known size. Might be inches.
Same for wheels, rifle ammunition, …
I use inches for TVs/monitors and although I’m as metric as they get, I have a 55” TV and my car has 20” rims and so on. Everything has cm, kW instead of horsepower etc listed as well for a TV of course.
As far as I know only a few countries - presumably because of regulation - have switched for absolutely everything. Australia is an example of a country where you can get a 100cm TV.
In Japan, the floor area of rooms are often measured in terms of Tatami mats (-Jo). You will see this on floor plans when looking at apartments, as well as when buying some items like lights or air purifiers that are advertised as being for certain sized rooms.
It's actually a pretty convenient unit, as long as you're familiar with how large tatami mats are.
Note that this unit isn't used for measuring an entire apartment's floor area though, that's done in meters.
Ask a German what their car's power is in kW. It's been more than forty years since PS (HP in German) has been relegated to merely tolerated, as long as the kW number is presented as the primary statement, but people still think in horse powers when talking about cars. Perhaps we are an outlier in the metrified countries, but I'm not convinced, I believe that gp is right.
Other examples are screen sizes: I have no intuition at all about how big 5.5" actually are, but I know where in the current phone market 5.5" would fall (awesomely non-huge!), whereas to my mind, the metric equivalent would carry no information at all ("bigger than a stamp, smaller than a TV"). And for sensor sizes you even have the situation where the imperial number is a "size class" with very little relation to actual size, whereas the metric number usually describes actual size. Completely different numbers. All countries use a combination of metric and some other system.
Beyond all edge cases mentioned by others (I add the bicycle frame size to the list) what is the most shocking for me having imperical units in international air traffic! Feets and pounds and gallons (as far as I know) mixed with SI units. One notable accident is the Gimli Glider where miscommunication occurred in fuel quantity calculations and the airplane took off with very little fuel running out mid air (excellent pilots and great story eventually).
Also naval folks are stubborn too. Own miles, knots as speed, craaazy! : )
Many/most items that were designed many years ago in imperial - tyres etc - are still described in imperial units.
But here in Finland (a completely metric country) things like televisions are still marketed/sold as 44" etc where the cm value could very easily be used.
The only thing I can think of is that screen diagonals are still measured in inches. Ignoring that, a lot of countries are definitely fully metric with regards to the basic length/weight/time measures
ktzar|3 years ago
N19PEDL2|3 years ago
This leads to two interesting consequences for aircraft that perform international flights from/to China: [1]
- they need to be equipped with two altimetry systems;
- they need to perform small climbs or descents when entering or leaving Chinese airspace, as metric flight levels do not usually match Imperial ones (flight levels are defined by round numbers).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level#Metric_flight_lev...
[1] https://skybrary.aero/articles/china-reduced-vertical-separa...
Symbiote|3 years ago
Several countries (e.g. France) use the word pound (livre) to mean 500g, which could confuse visitors into thinking something non-metric is being used. I noticed that in south America.
alkonaut|3 years ago
These are basically “sizes” that are imperial by tradition/accident more than people using them as measurement. If I wear size 32 waist jeans is that imperial? Maybe. I’m not measuring I’m just using it as a known size. Might be inches.
Same for wheels, rifle ammunition, …
I use inches for TVs/monitors and although I’m as metric as they get, I have a 55” TV and my car has 20” rims and so on. Everything has cm, kW instead of horsepower etc listed as well for a TV of course.
As far as I know only a few countries - presumably because of regulation - have switched for absolutely everything. Australia is an example of a country where you can get a 100cm TV.
EE84M3i|3 years ago
It's actually a pretty convenient unit, as long as you're familiar with how large tatami mats are.
Note that this unit isn't used for measuring an entire apartment's floor area though, that's done in meters.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami#Size
usrusr|3 years ago
Other examples are screen sizes: I have no intuition at all about how big 5.5" actually are, but I know where in the current phone market 5.5" would fall (awesomely non-huge!), whereas to my mind, the metric equivalent would carry no information at all ("bigger than a stamp, smaller than a TV"). And for sensor sizes you even have the situation where the imperial number is a "size class" with very little relation to actual size, whereas the metric number usually describes actual size. Completely different numbers. All countries use a combination of metric and some other system.
lagadu|3 years ago
295mm tyre width, sidewall height is 30% of the width and the wheel it fits in is 20 inches (can't recall whether it's 20 inch radius or diameter).
mihaaly|3 years ago
Also naval folks are stubborn too. Own miles, knots as speed, craaazy! : )
helsinkiandrew|3 years ago
But here in Finland (a completely metric country) things like televisions are still marketed/sold as 44" etc where the cm value could very easily be used.
mung|3 years ago
FreeFull|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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