League (unit)

A league is a unit of length. It was common in Europe and Latin America, but is no longer an official unit in any nation. Derived from an ancient Celtic unit and adopted by the Romans as the leuga, the league became a common unit of measurement throughout western Europe. Since the Middle Ages, many values have been specified in several countries. It may have originally represented, roughly, the distance a person could walk in an hour. Ancient Roman units of measurement The league was used in Ancient Rome, defined as 11⁄2 Roman miles (7,500 Roman feet, modern 2.2 km or 1.4 miles). The origin is the leuga Gallica (also: leuca Callica), the league of Gaul. The Argentine league (legua) is or 6,666 varas: 1 vara is . English units of measurement On land, the league is most commonly defined as three miles (4.83 km), although the length of a mile could vary from place to place as well as depending on the era. At sea, a league is . English usage also included many of the other leagues mentioned below (for example, in discussing the Treaty of Tordesillas). Units of measurement in France before the French Revolution The French lieue — at different times — existed in several variants, namely 10,000, 12,000, 13,200 and 14,400 French feet, about . It was used along with the metric system for a while, but is long discontinued. A metric lieue was used in France from 1812 to 1840, with 1 metric lieue being exactly 4,000 m, or 4 km (about 2.5 mi). It is this unit that is referenced in both the title and the body text of Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). In some rural parts of Mexico, the league (Spanish legua) is still 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. Portuguese customary units In Portugal, Brazil and other parts of the former Portuguese Empire, there were several units called league (Portuguese: légua): Légua of 18 to a degree = 6,172.