Measurements Used In Guatemala

Measurements used in Guatemala


Introduction
The present work shown below is about the measurements used in Guatemala, the measurement system used in Guatemala is the metric system, however there are some other measurement units that are used from other measurement systems like the English system, and some form the Spanish system. The investigation also includes the Engineering notations,which are used to express huge numerical values in fewer terms using prefixes; each prefix is assigned to a different power of 10. It is important to be aware of the metric system used in our country given that many equipments and mechanical parts from many machines are made using different measurement systems, so it is indispensable to know the equivalences of the metric system in other measurementsystems.

Measurements used in Guatemala

Brief history

On May 1910 most of Central America adopted a common system of measurements, and on May 1921 Guatemala became officially metric. Therefore, all road distances are in km; Guatemalan specific is that all roads have their distances measured from a spot that is located in the entrance of former presidential palace, now called Nationalpalace.
The measurement system used in Guatemala is the metric system, but also some traditional units of measurement, that come from Spain, and influence from US English units. For example you buy gas by the gallon, distances on roads are measured in kilometers, and you plant corn by the cuerda.

Some of the Guatemalan units of measurement some are based on old Spanish units; some of them arethe vara and cuadra linear measurements; the vara cuadrada, the manzana and the cuerda units of area; and the libra, arroba, quintal and garrafón units of weight and volume.

The most common measurement units of the metric system used in Guatemala are:

Magnitude | Measurement unit | Simbol |
Lenght | Meter | m. |
Mass | Gram | gr. |
Time | Second | s. |
Temperature | Kelvin | k. |Electric current intensity | Ampere | A. |
Luminous intensity | Candela | Cd. |
Substance quantity | Mol | Mol. |

Vara

It’s an old Spanish unit of length. Varas are very well known in many places along the United States, and varas were also used in many parts of Latin America. Measurements vary in size at different times and places; the Spanish unit was set to be 835.905 mm (32.91 in) in1801. In Argentina, the vara measured about 866 mm (34.1 in), and typical urban lots are 8.66 m (28.41 ft) wide (10 Argentine varas). At some time a value of 33 inches (838.2 mm) was adopted in California.
A measure of 100 varas by 100 varas (Spanish) is almost 7000 square meters, and is known traditionally throughout Latin America as a manzana.
The vara cuadrada or square vara is commonlyused in land transactions in Guatemala and 10,000 square varas equal one manzana. One square vara equals 0.6987 square meters (7.521 sq ft), while one manzana equals 6,987 square meters (1.727 acres). A Spanish pound (libra) is 460 grams.
Some United States customary units are also used. These include inches, feet, miles, gallons, pounds (note the Spanish pound is also used) and ounces.

CuadraIt’s the linear space that encompass from the two corners made by the intersection of a street with another street to the two corners made by the next crossing, it is approximately 100 to 150 meters long.
The Metric System and Scientific and Engineering Notations

Engineering notation is a version of scientific notation in which the powers of ten must be multiples of three (i.e., they arepowers of a thousand, but written as, for example, 106 instead of 10002). A common set of decimal-based prefixes is applied to some units which are too large or too small for practical use. The effect of the prefixes is to multiply or divide the unit by a factor of ten, one hundred or an integer power of one thousand, that is what they are used for, each prefix name has an associated symbol which...