A league is a unit of length. It was common in Europe and Latin America, but due to its highly inconsistent definition, it is no longer an official unit in any nation. Derived from an ancient Celtic unit and adopted by the Romans as the , the league became a common unit of measurement throughout western Europe. Since the Middle Ages, many values have been specified in several countries, ranging from 2.2 km (1.4 mi) to 7.9 km (4.9 mi).
It may have originally represented, roughly, the distance a person could walk in an hour.
The league was used in Ancient Rome, defined as 1ý Roman miles (7,500 Roman feet, modern 2.2 km or 1.4 miles). The origin is the (also: ), the league of Gaul.
The Argentine league () is or 6,666 : 1 is .
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).
The Battle Abbey Chronicles define a leuga (league) as the English leuga. This contains 12 roods, and 40 perches make a rood. The perch is 16 feet in length, so by this definition a league is 7,680 feet.
The French âÂÂat different timesâÂÂexisted 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 was used in France from 1812 to 1840, with 1 metric 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 ') 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.
In Portugal, Brazil and other parts of the former Portuguese Empire, there were several units called league (Portuguese: '):
The names of the several ' referred to the number of units that made the length corresponding to an angle degree of a meridian arc.
For compatibility after Portugal adopted the metric system, the metric ' of 5.0 km was used.
In Brazil, the ' is still used occasionally, where it has been described as about 6.6 km.
The ' or Spanish league was originally understood as equivalent to (Spanish miles). This varied depending on local standards for the pie (Spanish foot) and on the precision of measurement, but was officially equivalent to (2.6 miles) before the ' was abolished by Philip II in 1568. It remains in use in parts of Latin America, where its exact meaning varies.
In the early Hispanic settlements of New Mexico, Texas, California, and Colorado, a league was also a unit of area, defined as 25 million square varas or about 4,428.4 acres. This usage of league is referenced frequently in the Texas Constitution. So defined, a league of land would encompass a square that is one Spanish league on each side.
A comparison of the different lengths for a "league", in different countries and at different times in history, is given in the table below. Miles are also included in this list because of the linkage between the two units.
Similar units: