U.S. customary units

The U.S. customary units are the units of measurement currently used in the United States and they are mostly of British origin. Since 1959, the U.S. customary units are related to SI units. The directors of the national standards laboratories of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States entered into agreement, effective July 1, 1959, whereby the equivalent of 1 yard = 0.9144 meter and 1 avoirdupois pound = 0.453&thinsp;592&thinsp;37 kilogram were adopted.

As a broad generality, in the United States, the SI metric system of units is predominantly used in the fields of physics, chemistry and similar sciences. However, by and large, the so-called U.S. customary units are still widely used in industry, engineering, marketing and the general public of the United States.

This article selectively lists and defines the most commonly used U.S. customary units in terms of the corresponding SI units.

Units of length
The inch, foot, yard, and mile are the only four customary length measurements in everyday use by industry, engineers and the general public in the United States. In common usage, the "mile" is understood to be the statute mile (as differentiated from the "nautical mile").

It is quite common in the United States to use the word "feet" as the plural of the word "foot". One would say that the "A is one foot longer than B". However, one would say that "A is ten feet longer than B". That same usage applies to the words "square foot" and "square feet" as well as to "cubic foot" and "cubic feet".

Units of area
The square inch, square foot, square yard and acre are the four customary units of area measurement in everyday use by industry, engineers and the general public in the United States.

Units of volume
The three units commonly used for measuring volumes in the United States by industry, engineers and the general public are the cubic inch, cubic foot and cubic yard. In addition, there is a group of units that define certain liquid volumes, and one that defines dry material volumes.

Other than the cubic foot, cubic inch and cubic yard, these units are differently sized from the units in the Imperial system once used in the United Kingdom, although the names of the units are similar. Also, while the United States has separate systems for defining certain volumes of liquids and dry material, the Imperial system has one set of units for both. By and large, the Imperial system has been replaced by the metric system in the United Kingdom.

It should be noted that in the United States, the natural gas and petroleum refining industries commonly use the letter M to denote one thousand (103) and the letters MM to denote one million (106) when stating gas volumes in cubic feet.

Units of weight
In the everyday usage of the United States, the words weight and mass are interchangeable. In modern scientific usage however, weight and mass are two different quantities. Mass measures the amount of matter in an object whereas weight measures the amount of gravitational force acting on an object. Strictly speaking, one should make a distinction between pound-force and pound-mass. Thus, the units of weight in the tables below are in fact the units of force exerted by the action of standard gravity on the listed units of mass.

There are two systems of weight currently used in the United States, the Avoirdupois system and the Troy system. The Avoirdupois system is the one primarily used in industry, engineering and the basic avoirdupois unit is the pound.

The Troy system is used for weighing precious metals (such as gold, silver and platinum) and gemstones.

The Apothecary system once used by pharmacists has been largely replaced by the SI metric system of units.

Bushels of grain
Although the bushel is a dry volume unit, most grains in the United States are sold commercially as bushels defined by weight. The weight of a bushel of grain depends upon the specific grain and the percentage of moisture in the grain. The table below lists the weight of a bushel of grain for some example grains, each at their "standard" amount of moisture.

Units of pressure
The most commonly used units of pressure by industry, engineers and the general public in the United States are pound-force per square inch, foot of water and inches of mercury.

Units of energy and work
The most widely used unit of energy in the United States is the British thermal unit (Btu), which has a number of versions (the International Table Btu, the thermochemical Btu, the mean Btu and others). Of those various version, the most widely used is the International Table Btu and the thermochemical Btu listed in the table below.

The therm (105 Btu) is used by gas distribution companies. It is approximately equal to the heat energy released by burning 100 cubic feet of natural gas.

Units of power
The two most commonly used units of power in the United States customary units are mechanical horsepower and Btu/hour. The watt, an SI metric unit of power, is also widely used.

The boiler horsepower is the rate of energy required to evaporate 34.5 lb (15.65 kg) of water at 212 °F (100 °C) in one hour. It is a rarely used unit.