Centimeters to Inches

About this conversion

This direction of the conversion is the one that online shoppers need most. Furniture sold by European retailers lists a 90 cm sofa width, American pattern books expect 45 inch fabric cuts, and a French child's growth chart records 128 cm where an American chart would say 50 inches. Packing is another daily trigger: airlines and rental agencies abroad quote carry-on sizes like 55 x 40 x 23 cm, which mean nothing to a traveler whose suitcase tag reads 22 x 14 x 9 inches. Knowing that a centimeter is a little under four tenths of an inch, and that ten centimeters is about four inches, turns foreign product pages into readable ones. Since the 1959 international agreement defines the inch as exactly 2.54 centimeters, dividing centimeters by 2.54 gives a mathematically exact answer rather than an approximation. The table below covers the lengths that appear on luggage tags, rulers and product pages.

Quick reference

Common values at a glance

Real-world example

Questions & answers

Frequently asked questions