League (unit)
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A league is a unit of length, used to express distance, long common in Europe and Latin America, although no longer an official unit in any nation. In the 1800s in the United States, a league was also a unit of area.
The league, as a unit of length, expresses the distance a person, or a horse, can walk in 1 hour of time (usually about 3 miles or 5 kilometres).
In English units in the past couple of centuries or so, it was most often 3 nautical miles, or about 5.56 km (nautical miles varied slightly at different times and places). However, English language usage includes use of this word for any of the various leagues mentioned below, e.g., in discussing the Treaty of Tordesillas.
As a unit of area, a league is defined as being equal to 4428.4 acres. This usage of league is referenced constantly in the Texas Constitution.
Different definitions
The league was used by Ancient Rome, which defined it as being 3 miles. The origin is the Persian parasang which came to the Romans via the Greek.The Spanish League or [Legua] was originally set as a fixed unit of distance of 5,000 varas, about 2.6 miles or 4.2 km. Officially the league was abolished by Philip II of Spain in 1568, but it is still in use unofficially in parts of Latin America, with exact meaning varying in different countries.
In Argentina a league is a distance of 5 km.
In Brazil the league has fallen into disuse, but it used to be described as equivalent to 6 km.
In Yucatan and other parts of rural Mexico the league is still commonly used in the original sense of the distance that can be covered on foot in an hour, so that a league along a good road on level ground is a greater distance than a league on a difficult path over rough terrain.
The French [lieue] exists in several variants, all in the neighborhood of 4 km. Its use overlapped the metric system for a while but is now long discontinued. The nautical league was worth 3 nautical miles.
Use in fiction
- The seven-league boots are a magical prop in European folk tales.
- The Jules Verne novel about Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus is entitled Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
- It is featured prominently in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a unit of measurement.
- Constantly used in the Inheritance Series or Eragon and Eldest books by Christiphor Paolini. Most characters refer to it when they are traveling and saying how far things are or how far they have gone.
See also
- Medieval weights and measures for various definitions of the league.
- League disambiguation.
- Obsolete Spanish and Portuguese units of measurement
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