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Concept
Kilometre
Summary
The kilometre (SI symbol: km; ˈkɪləmiːtər or kɪˈlɒmətər), spelt kilometer in American English and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for 1000). It is now the measurement unit used for expressing distances between geographical places on land in most of the world; notable exceptions are the United States and the United Kingdom where the statute mile is the main unit used.
The abbreviations k or K (pronounced keɪ) are commonly used to represent kilometre, but are not recommended by the BIPM. A slang term for the kilometre in the US, UK, and Canadian militaries is klick.
There are two common pronunciations for the word.
ˈkɪləmiːtər,_-loʊ-
kᵻˈlɒmᵻtər
The first pronunciation follows a pattern in English whereby metric units are pronounced with the stress on the first syllable (as in kilogram, kilojoule and kilohertz) and the pronunciation of the actual base unit does not change irrespective of the prefix (as in centimetre, millimetre, nanometre and so on). It is generally preferred by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Many other users, particularly in countries where the metric system is not widely used, use the second pronunciation with stress on the second syllable. The second pronunciation follows the stress pattern used for the names of measuring instruments (such as micrometer, barometer, thermometer, tachometer and speedometer). The contrast is even more obvious in countries which use the Commonwealth spelling rather than American spelling of the word metre. This pronunciation is irregular because this makes the kilometre the only SI unit in which the stress is on the second syllable.
When Australia introduced the metric system in 1975, the first pronunciation was declared official by the government's Metric Conversion Board.
Official source
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