Measurement Units

Name: Measurement Units
Creator: staticdata.dev
License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

169 measurement units spanning 35 physical and digital quantities — length, mass, time, area, volume, temperature, speed, force, energy, power, pressure, angle, frequency, electric quantities, and more — each with its symbol, quantity type, measurement system (SI/metric/imperial/US), and a numeric conversion factor to the SI base unit of that quantity.

v1.0.0 MIT 169 records Updated 2026-10-05 stable Source: NIST SP 330 — The International System of Units (SI), NIST Guide to the SI (SP 811), BIPM — The International System of Units

Quick fetch

Stable URL. CORS-enabled. No auth.

bash

curl https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.json

Or use as a typed import: import { measurementUnits } from "https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.ts"

Formats

JSON 22.3 KB

/v1/measurement-units.json

Open

min: 16.3 KB · /v1/measurement-units.min.json
CSV 6.5 KB

/v1/measurement-units.csv

Open
TypeScript 22.5 KB

/v1/measurement-units.ts

export const measurementUnits

type MeasurementUnit = (typeof measurementUnits)[number]

Open

Schema

Each record in the dataset has the following shape.

Schema
Field	Type	Description	Example
name	string	Full human-readable name of the unit	Metre
symbol	string	Standard symbol or abbreviation for the unit	m
quantity	string	Physical or digital quantity the unit measures	length
system	string	Measurement system: SI, metric, imperial, or US (SI is used loosely here, also covering non-SI units used alongside it, e.g. hour, nautical mile, light-year, electronvolt)	SI
toBaseFactor	number \| null	Multiply by this to convert to the SI base unit; null for offset-based units (e.g. Fahrenheit)	1

Preview

First 10 records.

Data preview
name	symbol	quantity	system	toBaseFactor
Metre	m	length	SI	1
Kilometre	km	length	SI	1000
Centimetre	cm	length	SI	0.01
Millimetre	mm	length	SI	0.001
Micrometre	µm	length	SI	0.000001
Nanometre	nm	length	SI	1e-9
Inch	in	length	imperial	0.0254
Foot	ft	length	imperial	0.3048
Yard	yd	length	imperial	0.9144
Mile	mi	length	imperial	1609.344

Showing 10 of 169. View full data: JSON · CSV

Fetch examples

Drop-in snippets in five languages.

curl

curl -sSL https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.json | jq '.[0]'

JavaScript

import type { MeasurementUnit } from "https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.ts";

const res = await fetch("https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.min.json");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Fetch failed: ${res.status}`);
const measurementUnits: MeasurementUnit[] = await res.json();
console.log(measurementUnits[0]);

Python

import urllib.request, json

with urllib.request.urlopen("https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.min.json") as r:
    measurementUnits = json.load(r)

print(measurementUnits[0])

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	resp, err := http.Get("https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.min.json")
	if err != nil { panic(err) }
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	var data []map[string]any
	if err := json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(&data); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(data[0])
}

Rust

use serde_json::Value;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let body = ureq::get("https://staticdata.dev/v1/measurement-units.min.json").call()?.into_string()?;
    let data: Vec<Value> = serde_json::from_str(&body)?;
    println!("{:?}", data.first());
    Ok(())
}

Sources and methodology

This dataset was curated from the NIST Special Publication 330 (The International System of Units) and SP 811 (Guide to the SI), cross-referenced with BIPM definitions. It covers 169 units across 35 quantity categories including all seven SI base units and a selection of their common prefixed multiples, plus widely used non-SI units accepted for use with the SI (litre, tonne, bar, electronvolt, etc.) and traditional imperial and US customary units.

The toBaseFactor field gives the multiplicative factor needed to convert a value in that unit to the SI base unit for that quantity (e.g., metre for length, kilogram for mass, second for time, square metre for area, cubic metre for volume, kelvin for temperature). Degree Celsius and degree Fahrenheit use an affine (offset + scale) conversion rather than a pure multiplicative one, so their toBaseFactor is null — consumers should apply the standard offset formulas (K = °C + 273.15; K = (°F + 459.67) × 5/9). The Rankine scale starts at absolute zero, so it has a plain factor of 5/9. Digital information units use the bit as the base unit; decimal byte-multiples follow the SI prefixes (kB = 8000 bits) while binary-prefixed IEC units (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB) use powers of 1024.

Mach speed is given at standard sea-level conditions (15 °C, 1 atm) where the speed of sound is approximately 340.3 m/s; this value varies with altitude and temperature. The calorie value used is the thermochemical calorie (4.184 J) rather than the International Table calorie (4.1868 J). Horsepower is the mechanical (imperial) variant (≈ 745.7 W); metric horsepower (PS, ≈ 735.5 W) is not included. The torr is 101325/760 Pa, while the conventional millimetre of mercury is 133.322387415 Pa. The system value SI is applied loosely: it also covers non-SI units commonly used alongside the SI, such as the minute, hour, day, week, Julian year, nautical mile, knot, astronomical unit, light-year, parsec, electronvolt, Mach number, decibel and neper. All other conversion factors are exact or use the best available NIST/BIPM-defined values.

Versioning

URLs under /v1/ are stable: field names and types will not change in a way that breaks consumers. Values can be corrected or records added when the upstream source changes; schema-incompatible updates ship under a new version path. See the measurement-units changelog for this dataset's history.

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