Converting Yards to Meters

This example problem demonstrates how to convert 100 yards to meters. Both yards and meters are common units of length, so the conversion is simple:

An American football field has 100 yards of playing field. How far is this in meters?

Solution

Start out with a conversion factor:

1 yard = 0.9144 meters

Set up the conversion so the desired unit will be cancelled out. In this case, we want m to be the remaining unit.

distance in m = (distance in yard) x (0.9144 m/1 yd)
distance in m = (100 x 0.9144) m
distance in m = 91.44 m

Answer

100 yards is equal to 91.44 meters.

Many conversion factors are difficult to remember. Feet to meters would fall into this category. An alternate method to perform this conversion is to use multiple easily remembered steps.

1 yard = 3 feet
1 foot = 12 inches
1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
100 centimeters = 1 meter

Using these steps we can express a distance in meters from yards as:

distance in m = (distance in yd) x (3 ft/1 yd) (12 in/1 ft) x (2.54 cm/1 in) x (1 m/100 cm)
distance in m = (distance in yd) x 0.9144 m/yd

Note this gives the same conversion factor as above. The only thing to watch out for is for the intermediate units to cancel out.