Convert miles to furlongs

The statute mile is exactly 1,609.344 metres and divides into eight equal parts. Each of them is one furlong, that is 220 yards or 201.168 metres[1]. The NIST table writes the whole division in one line: “1 mile (mi) = 5 280 feet = 8 furlongs = 80 chains = 320 rods”[2].

That line starts from the mile, but it was the mile that was fitted to the furlong. The furlong measured ploughed fields long before the mile took its present length. The Roman mile ran to 5,000 feet, and Queen Elizabeth I set the English mile at 5,280 feet, exactly eight furlongs[2]. From that point on both units have shared one division.

The second mile you meet in texts has an entirely different origin. The nautical mile is 1,852 metres and answers to one minute of arc on a meridian, so it holds more than nine furlongs and the figure runs on past the decimal point. The Mile type switch in the converter above moves the sum between the two.

A statute mile holds eight furlongs. The Weights and Measures Act 1985 gives the mile in Schedule 1 as 1,760 yards and the furlong as 220 yards[3], so the quotient of those two figures is an even eight.

Three values come out of that division and they are the ones you reach for when reading a race card. A quarter of a mile is two furlongs, the American quarter-horse distance. Half a mile gives four furlongs. One and a half miles come to twelve furlongs.

Multiplying by eight has a convenient property: fractions of a mile with 8 and 16 underneath give whole furlongs or halves. An American card distance of 1 1/16 miles therefore comes out in the converter as 8.5 furlongs.

The same sum carries on above a mile. Two miles give sixteen furlongs, and three miles twenty-four. Past one mile, though, British and Irish cards write the answer with two figures at once: whole miles first, then the remainder in furlongs.

The formula has one step: furlongs = miles × 8.

Take one and a half miles. Multiplied by eight it gives twelve furlongs. A British race card prints the same distance as 1m 4f and the converter as 1 mi 4 fur, because four furlongs are left above the whole mile.

In a spreadsheet one formula covers it. If the number of miles sits in cell A2, type =A2*8 in the next cell and drag it down the column.

The other direction is handled by the furlongs to miles converter. A distance given in metres or kilometres goes through the meters to miles and kilometers to miles converters.

Which unit you are looking at is settled by the country the figure comes from. Races across the English-speaking world are measured in miles and furlongs[1], and the commonest distances fall between five and twelve furlongs[10].

Courses on the European mainland give the distance in metres. The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is run over 2,400 metres, and the Italian Derby over 2,200. Those figures answer to 11.9 and 10.9 furlongs, so they sit close to the twelve and eleven furlongs of a British card without matching them.

Mexico is a case of its own, because it uses both measures at once. The Hipódromo de las Américas race card prints a distance as “502.92 METROS (2 1/2 F)” and “1,307.60 METROS (6 1/2 F)”[11], giving metres and furlongs on one line.

One country puts furlongs outside the racecourse as well: Myanmar signs distances in them beside miles[1]. A distance given in metres goes through the meters to miles converter, and a race written in miles and yards through the miles to yards converter.