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The page shows a side box with 11.821 mile/chain. It's easy to show consistency with the rest of the article: 80 chain/mile and 5280'/mile = 66'/chain x 80 chain/mile = 16.5'/rod x 4 rod/chain x 80 chain/mile, etc. Or, 1 mile/80 chain = 0.0125 mile/chain. -- KCK 21:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
This article contains almost the complete contents of the Gunter's measurement article and perhaps these articles should be merged, and a redirect placed from Gunter's. 148.63.234.151 08:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I think both of the above comments are right, but on balance I think Gunter deserves the credit for inventing the surveying device, which led on to the unit of measurement.
I've enhanced this page with the units of measurement discussion, and I have created a Gunter's chain page and transferred all the surveying stuff to that.
I'm still worried that the North American and Australian stuff remaining on this page looks anecdotal and non-authoritative; if any editors can improve those sections it would be very helpful.
Afterbrunel 10:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
In the side box headed 1 chain =, under Imperial units, is the equivalence 1 chain = 12.5x10^-3 miles. That figure should be 12.5x10^-2 miles, or 125x10^-3 miles, which is 0.125 miles, which is one-eighth of a mile. 64.193.92.84 00:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure? A chain is 1/80 mile, so it is 0.0125 miles. Afterbrunel 10:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Another side box error: it says that one chain is 22.0000 yards or 66.0001 ft. Where did this 0.0001 come from? Metric conversion? I'm changing this to 66.0000 ft, as a yard is exactly 3 feet. Lieutenant pepper ( talk) 21:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Hqb you gave me a good laugh. Maybe there's a big conspiracy out there! ;-) Surveyor792 ( talk) 06:10, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot 04:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot 20:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it is very much in use in India. All land measurements/survey for commercial purposes are done using the Chain. India is hugely influenced by Britain in this and a lot of other things. And we stick to our traditions. 59.180.161.253 ( talk) 17:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Removed/Edit: "It is important to remember that the miles and chains are used to identify locations, not as an actual measurement of distance citation needed." This claim has no citation and is, in any event not-factual. Certainly not as entered in any event. Chainage can be seen marked with spray paint on many structures such as platforms which confirms that there is no active intermingling of metric with Miles/Chainage. Example. Down platform, Mansfield, Nottingham. Recently spray painted chainage intervals in bright pink every 22 yds. Avoiding trespass one should be able to mark off 22 paces along these marks. Locations will continue to be marked in M/Ch but the fact that this is a measure of distance has passed over the head of the original editor. Relay locations (locs), AHB, AOCL, CCTV, Tunnels or other crossing, other equipment are referred to by M/Ch and there has been a rolling program of clearly identifying the same across the UK which anyone can check. Mileage/quarter marker posts are retained usually on the "up" side, which provide benchamark offsets to chainage. If reinstated it needs proof/citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.101.212 ( talk) 21:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I remember from some research I did years ago (unfortnately I have lost the references) that the acre was the amount of field that a plough team could expect to do in a day. It was a furlong long and 1 chain wide. Does anyone know it this is supported by the size of medieval strip fields? Dave Catlin ( talk) 08:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
The following details about British railways was removed, as it is not relevant to article on chains. It might fit under miles or an article on railroads.
75.150.168.6 ( talk) 16:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)
I removed the claim that the "symbol" for chain is 'ch' from the first sentence of the lead: see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-06-09/Op-ed on excess parenthetical detail in the lead. But I know of no evidence that this would even be correct: it is true that SI units have "symbols", which are explicitly not "abbreviations", so that by way of simple example, in Italian chilometro would have to be abbreviated without a 'k', but Italian uses the SI symbol like everyone else. However, I do not think there is any body, in the UK or anywhere else, laying down specifications for "symbols" for historical units. Chains were commonly abbreviated 'ch', but I bet 'chn' and other possibilities also occurred from time to time. So I think the infobox should also be changed. But anyway, this is a classic example of something which merely clutters up the first sentence. Imaginatorium ( talk) 16:03, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The chain was already the surveyor's unit of measurement in the 9th century AD - Winchester, Oxford and other Saxon towns were laid out using it.Vince Calegon 11:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vince Calegon ( talk • contribs)
The article says that there are 100 link in a chain, yet the chain is defined as having 100.084 links - not 100 exactly. Why not? Surely this article should explain? -- 88.97.11.54 ( talk) 12:32, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
I think the "Forestry tools and equipment" shortcut box at the lower part of the article does not belong here. 2A02:8084:9842:4000:85D8:1FDF:DF4C:8B3A ( talk) 07:48, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
A lot of discussion has taken place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways on chainage, and this article does need to be more robust.-- ClemRutter ( talk) 10:48, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
The definition section needs changing again, it has become confused between surveying chains and the "standard chain" as a unit of measure. IMO, it should only be about the latter. I suspect that where we have come unstuck is that surveying chain redirects to Guntner's Chain buwhereas it should stand on its own. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 16:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
It becomes obvious how the confusion arose [yes, me too] when so much of this article is clogged with material about surveying chains. So i propose the following drastic edits:
Comments? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 22:40, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
I suggest we create a number of redirects to this article in the form
Chain (22 yards),
Chain (20 metres),
Chain (30 metres), etc (which could each redirect to a suitable subheading or anchor point, if there is one). Then an article quoting a distance in chains could use a piped link to the appropriate redirect (e.g. 32 [[Chain (22 yards)|chain]]s
) instead of direct to the article. The link will then have a tooltip that clarifies what a chain is. --
Dr Greg
talk
14:27, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Following discussion above, it is proposed that this article be split so that it contains only material about the statute chain (22 yards). Material about surveying/surveyor's chains are to be moved to a new article. Any comments by Wednesday 12:00 UTC please, as I believe that it to be a non-controversial change. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 20:12, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Was the invention that it was 4 rods long, or that it had 1 hundred precision links or that for the first time an astronmer had addressed the problem. 16 1/2 feet was an obvious fraction of a statute mile but was that the - linking up official measurements to the vernacular perch (rod)? A bit of expert help from the Maths History Community is needed.Gunter also invented 'Gunter's chain' which was 22 yards long with 100 links. It was used for surveying and the unit of area called an acre is ten square chains. Gunter also studied magnetic declination and was the first to observe the secular variation.
I really ought to have stated the full proposal rather than assume that all interested parties were already following, so let me do so now:
Does that change anyone's view? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:15, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
I can't claim to have a consensus for the change as I originally proposed and so it fails. I accept and agree with the argument that the article Gunter's Chain is satisfactory and should be left alone. I still believe that this article is a mess and would support a proposal to split it [rather than just delete the extraneous material]. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 13:24, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
I began with the section on the measuring devices. It's relevant to have concise WP:SUMMARY info on them (and two don't have articles of their own). I merged out most of the Ramsden's material. The rest were already quite short. I then merged the redundant "See also" link in, and moved the entire section to near the bottom. Next, I patched up the geographical material (merged Texas to North America, arranged the material logically, copyedited a lot, and expanded the Texas (vara) section with links and stuff, but I don't have any more info on the unit. Didn't do anything with the .au/.nz section or the material above it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:59, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
PS: This is all I'm going to put in on it any time soon. There's a bigger thread above about a lot more cleanup work to do. Someone else's turn. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:07, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
PPS: Here's a multi-diff of all the changes [1]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:13, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
@ Redrose64: There has been some misunderstanding caused by a long ago edit. The acre is defined as 10 square chains. Ten chains is one furlong. A long ago editor made the connection that one chain by one furlong is equivalent to an acre, which is true, but this then became a definition of the acre in this article, and was unreferenced. Even worse, the same notion was carried through to the acre article, where the acre is defined as one chain by one furlong. This is not true, and further down in the acre article it is even stated that the acre has no particular shape. It is very wrong to define it in terms of the furlong. Akld guy ( talk) 23:41, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
I removed the claim that this is a unit in (just) two systems. I do not think this claim helps, because actually the chain is a historical unit, described in the English language by its "pre-system" origin in the tool used to measure it. The claim is also not really accurate, because (as described in the article) its usage is in fact much wider than these two systems. Imaginatorium ( talk) 07:31, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
First, @ Groogle: I reverted to using the conversion template. This is better, because it is vandalism resistent. If more precision is needed, which I doubt, the template doubtless has an appropriate parameter. And a question perhaps about American usage: Why do we need to convert yards to feet? A chain is also 1/80 of a mile, or 792 inches, but we don't need to say that. What is so special about feet? Imaginatorium ( talk) 04:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Cricket is already mentioned, but isn't there also a 22 yard line in rugby? Dondervogel 2 ( talk) 06:21, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
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The page shows a side box with 11.821 mile/chain. It's easy to show consistency with the rest of the article: 80 chain/mile and 5280'/mile = 66'/chain x 80 chain/mile = 16.5'/rod x 4 rod/chain x 80 chain/mile, etc. Or, 1 mile/80 chain = 0.0125 mile/chain. -- KCK 21:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
This article contains almost the complete contents of the Gunter's measurement article and perhaps these articles should be merged, and a redirect placed from Gunter's. 148.63.234.151 08:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I think both of the above comments are right, but on balance I think Gunter deserves the credit for inventing the surveying device, which led on to the unit of measurement.
I've enhanced this page with the units of measurement discussion, and I have created a Gunter's chain page and transferred all the surveying stuff to that.
I'm still worried that the North American and Australian stuff remaining on this page looks anecdotal and non-authoritative; if any editors can improve those sections it would be very helpful.
Afterbrunel 10:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
In the side box headed 1 chain =, under Imperial units, is the equivalence 1 chain = 12.5x10^-3 miles. That figure should be 12.5x10^-2 miles, or 125x10^-3 miles, which is 0.125 miles, which is one-eighth of a mile. 64.193.92.84 00:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure? A chain is 1/80 mile, so it is 0.0125 miles. Afterbrunel 10:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Another side box error: it says that one chain is 22.0000 yards or 66.0001 ft. Where did this 0.0001 come from? Metric conversion? I'm changing this to 66.0000 ft, as a yard is exactly 3 feet. Lieutenant pepper ( talk) 21:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Hqb you gave me a good laugh. Maybe there's a big conspiracy out there! ;-) Surveyor792 ( talk) 06:10, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot 04:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot 20:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it is very much in use in India. All land measurements/survey for commercial purposes are done using the Chain. India is hugely influenced by Britain in this and a lot of other things. And we stick to our traditions. 59.180.161.253 ( talk) 17:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Removed/Edit: "It is important to remember that the miles and chains are used to identify locations, not as an actual measurement of distance citation needed." This claim has no citation and is, in any event not-factual. Certainly not as entered in any event. Chainage can be seen marked with spray paint on many structures such as platforms which confirms that there is no active intermingling of metric with Miles/Chainage. Example. Down platform, Mansfield, Nottingham. Recently spray painted chainage intervals in bright pink every 22 yds. Avoiding trespass one should be able to mark off 22 paces along these marks. Locations will continue to be marked in M/Ch but the fact that this is a measure of distance has passed over the head of the original editor. Relay locations (locs), AHB, AOCL, CCTV, Tunnels or other crossing, other equipment are referred to by M/Ch and there has been a rolling program of clearly identifying the same across the UK which anyone can check. Mileage/quarter marker posts are retained usually on the "up" side, which provide benchamark offsets to chainage. If reinstated it needs proof/citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.101.212 ( talk) 21:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I remember from some research I did years ago (unfortnately I have lost the references) that the acre was the amount of field that a plough team could expect to do in a day. It was a furlong long and 1 chain wide. Does anyone know it this is supported by the size of medieval strip fields? Dave Catlin ( talk) 08:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
The following details about British railways was removed, as it is not relevant to article on chains. It might fit under miles or an article on railroads.
75.150.168.6 ( talk) 16:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help)
I removed the claim that the "symbol" for chain is 'ch' from the first sentence of the lead: see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-06-09/Op-ed on excess parenthetical detail in the lead. But I know of no evidence that this would even be correct: it is true that SI units have "symbols", which are explicitly not "abbreviations", so that by way of simple example, in Italian chilometro would have to be abbreviated without a 'k', but Italian uses the SI symbol like everyone else. However, I do not think there is any body, in the UK or anywhere else, laying down specifications for "symbols" for historical units. Chains were commonly abbreviated 'ch', but I bet 'chn' and other possibilities also occurred from time to time. So I think the infobox should also be changed. But anyway, this is a classic example of something which merely clutters up the first sentence. Imaginatorium ( talk) 16:03, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The chain was already the surveyor's unit of measurement in the 9th century AD - Winchester, Oxford and other Saxon towns were laid out using it.Vince Calegon 11:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vince Calegon ( talk • contribs)
The article says that there are 100 link in a chain, yet the chain is defined as having 100.084 links - not 100 exactly. Why not? Surely this article should explain? -- 88.97.11.54 ( talk) 12:32, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
I think the "Forestry tools and equipment" shortcut box at the lower part of the article does not belong here. 2A02:8084:9842:4000:85D8:1FDF:DF4C:8B3A ( talk) 07:48, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
A lot of discussion has taken place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways on chainage, and this article does need to be more robust.-- ClemRutter ( talk) 10:48, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
The definition section needs changing again, it has become confused between surveying chains and the "standard chain" as a unit of measure. IMO, it should only be about the latter. I suspect that where we have come unstuck is that surveying chain redirects to Guntner's Chain buwhereas it should stand on its own. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 16:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
It becomes obvious how the confusion arose [yes, me too] when so much of this article is clogged with material about surveying chains. So i propose the following drastic edits:
Comments? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 22:40, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
I suggest we create a number of redirects to this article in the form
Chain (22 yards),
Chain (20 metres),
Chain (30 metres), etc (which could each redirect to a suitable subheading or anchor point, if there is one). Then an article quoting a distance in chains could use a piped link to the appropriate redirect (e.g. 32 [[Chain (22 yards)|chain]]s
) instead of direct to the article. The link will then have a tooltip that clarifies what a chain is. --
Dr Greg
talk
14:27, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Following discussion above, it is proposed that this article be split so that it contains only material about the statute chain (22 yards). Material about surveying/surveyor's chains are to be moved to a new article. Any comments by Wednesday 12:00 UTC please, as I believe that it to be a non-controversial change. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 20:12, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Was the invention that it was 4 rods long, or that it had 1 hundred precision links or that for the first time an astronmer had addressed the problem. 16 1/2 feet was an obvious fraction of a statute mile but was that the - linking up official measurements to the vernacular perch (rod)? A bit of expert help from the Maths History Community is needed.Gunter also invented 'Gunter's chain' which was 22 yards long with 100 links. It was used for surveying and the unit of area called an acre is ten square chains. Gunter also studied magnetic declination and was the first to observe the secular variation.
I really ought to have stated the full proposal rather than assume that all interested parties were already following, so let me do so now:
Does that change anyone's view? -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:15, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
I can't claim to have a consensus for the change as I originally proposed and so it fails. I accept and agree with the argument that the article Gunter's Chain is satisfactory and should be left alone. I still believe that this article is a mess and would support a proposal to split it [rather than just delete the extraneous material]. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 13:24, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
I began with the section on the measuring devices. It's relevant to have concise WP:SUMMARY info on them (and two don't have articles of their own). I merged out most of the Ramsden's material. The rest were already quite short. I then merged the redundant "See also" link in, and moved the entire section to near the bottom. Next, I patched up the geographical material (merged Texas to North America, arranged the material logically, copyedited a lot, and expanded the Texas (vara) section with links and stuff, but I don't have any more info on the unit. Didn't do anything with the .au/.nz section or the material above it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:59, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
PS: This is all I'm going to put in on it any time soon. There's a bigger thread above about a lot more cleanup work to do. Someone else's turn. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:07, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
PPS: Here's a multi-diff of all the changes [1]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:13, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
@ Redrose64: There has been some misunderstanding caused by a long ago edit. The acre is defined as 10 square chains. Ten chains is one furlong. A long ago editor made the connection that one chain by one furlong is equivalent to an acre, which is true, but this then became a definition of the acre in this article, and was unreferenced. Even worse, the same notion was carried through to the acre article, where the acre is defined as one chain by one furlong. This is not true, and further down in the acre article it is even stated that the acre has no particular shape. It is very wrong to define it in terms of the furlong. Akld guy ( talk) 23:41, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
I removed the claim that this is a unit in (just) two systems. I do not think this claim helps, because actually the chain is a historical unit, described in the English language by its "pre-system" origin in the tool used to measure it. The claim is also not really accurate, because (as described in the article) its usage is in fact much wider than these two systems. Imaginatorium ( talk) 07:31, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
First, @ Groogle: I reverted to using the conversion template. This is better, because it is vandalism resistent. If more precision is needed, which I doubt, the template doubtless has an appropriate parameter. And a question perhaps about American usage: Why do we need to convert yards to feet? A chain is also 1/80 of a mile, or 792 inches, but we don't need to say that. What is so special about feet? Imaginatorium ( talk) 04:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Cricket is already mentioned, but isn't there also a 22 yard line in rugby? Dondervogel 2 ( talk) 06:21, 18 July 2024 (UTC)