What is a Furlong?
A furlong is a unit of measure in the UK and the US, which is not seen often in modern times. It translates to an eighth of a mile, 660 feet, or 220 yards (.20 km or 201.17 m). Thus if you were traveling at a speed of 10 mph (16.09 kph), you’d essentially travel 80 furlongs per hour. Furlong is closely related to the Greek and Roman measurement of stade, which is a little smaller. The stade is 625 feet (190.5 m). Early English translations of Greek text in the Bible complicated the matter of measurement by substituting furlong for stade, despite the fact that this was inaccurate. Like furlongs though, the stade constituted an eighth of the Roman mile. After Roman control of Europe fell, the British retained much of these original units of measure, and published specific measurements by the 1300s. Furlongs were especially important, since they tended to be the measurement of a row or furrow in an acre. The British acre was essentially one furlong long and four chains, each composed of 2
