A meter is the basic unit of measurement in the metric system. Originally, meters were the length of a pendulum that shook each time it hit a floor or a beam. The original metric system was based on the length of a pendulum and consisted of 1/10 000th of a kilometer (or one tenth of a millimeter). Today, meters are used to measure everything from length to volume to temperature. Meter is a unit of measurement that originated in ancient India. It was primarily used to measure liquids, such as water and rice wine, but it has since been adapted for other uses. In particular, meter is the standard by which length and weight are measured. Today, meter is most commonly used to measure electricity, gas and water. Butmeter has also been adopted by some industries as their preferred standard for measuring quantities such as freight volume, material flow or production output.

The yard is the traditional length unit of linear measure. It is traditionally equivalent to 0.9144 meters, though it has been varied between 9 and 12 feet in recent times. The yard was first conceptualized by fifth-century BC Egyptians and was standardized as 9 feet in 1795 by the French military engineer General Hoche. During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army was unimpressed with various proposals for a new foot measuring system and instead adopted the British yard as their standard. The use of the yard spread rapidly throughout the world after that due to its international compatibility. Today, most countries use either the metric system or a variant of it, and there are few remaining areas where yards are used; Africa mostly uses meters, India uses centimeters, parts of Asia use traditional units like li and fen.