Understanding 1.63m in feet (A quick guide to what this metric height actually equals)

So, I came across this figure the other day: 1.63m. And, you know, I mostly think in feet and inches. It’s just how my brain is wired, I guess. When I see meters, especially with a decimal, I have to stop and translate it in my head.

My first thought was, “Alright, how tall is that, really?” I had a vague idea, knowing that one meter is a bit more than three feet. So, 1.63m… maybe around five feet and a little bit? But I wanted to get a more precise picture.

Figuring it Out

I decided to actually work it out. I remembered there’s a conversion factor for meters to feet. Had to dredge it up from the back of my mind. If I couldn’t recall, I’d just do a quick search, no shame in that. The number I usually go with is that 1 meter is approximately 3.28084 feet.

So, I got my calculator out – alright, it was my phone, let’s be real. I punched in the numbers:

1.63 (that’s the meters) multiplied by 3.28084 (that’s the feet per meter).

The result came out as something like 5.3477692 feet.

Okay, so that’s 5 whole feet, easy enough. But then you have that decimal part: 0.3477692 feet. That doesn’t immediately tell me much in everyday terms. Who says “I’m zero point three four seven seven feet tall” for the remainder? Nobody. We use inches for that bit.

Getting to Inches

The next step was to convert that decimal part of a foot into inches. I know there are 12 inches in a foot. So, I took that 0.3477692 and multiplied it by 12.

Let’s see… 0.3477692 times 12… that gives me about 4.1732304 inches.

So, we can round that. Let’s just say it’s a bit over 4 inches, maybe 4.17 inches or even just call it roughly 4 and a quarter inches if we’re chatting casually.

So, after all that, 1.63 meters comes out to be approximately 5 feet and 4.17 inches. That makes a lot more sense to me. Now I can actually picture it. It’s funny how different units can make something feel abstract or concrete. For me, meters for height often feel a bit abstract until I switch it over to feet and inches. Just a little practical thing I went through, and thought I’d share the steps.