UK weight-loss calculator
Height converter
Convert between centimetres and feet and inches. Type into either box to convert in both directions.
Updated
cm = ft in
Displayed values are rounded for readability, but the arithmetic uses the full precision of the internationally defined factors, an inch is exactly 2.54 cm and a foot is exactly 12 inches, so converting back and forth will not drift.
Centimetres to Feet and inches
5 ft 7 in
170 cm converts to the figure on the left, exactly. Nothing in it is an approximation.
Converting height
Britain never finished changing over. Heights are given in feet and inches on passports, in conversation and at the doctor, while almost every health tool built in the last thirty years expects centimetres, so the conversion sits between people and their own numbers more often than it should.
You may not need it at all. Every calculator on this site takes feet and inches directly, with a switch beside the field, and converts internally at full precision. Converting by hand first, rounding to the nearest inch and typing that in is the one route that loses accuracy.
Which of the two do you want
- Centimetres to feet and inches if a form, an app or a medical record handed you a number in cm and you want to picture it.
- Feet and inches to centimetres if you know your height the way you would say it out loud and something is asking for cm.
Both run the same arithmetic in opposite directions, and both carry a full reference chart you can read without typing anything.
Rounding, and why your height moves
An inch is 2.54 cm exactly, so almost no whole number of centimetres is a whole number of inches. A height recorded as 175 cm is 5 ft 8.9 in, which most people round to 5 ft 9 in, and converting that back gives 175.3 cm. Nothing is wrong: you have rounded once and the half-centimetre is the cost of it.