Talk:League (unit)

League = 1.5 miles or 3 miles?
I posted this question also in Talk:Ancient_Roman_units_of_measurement, but it may also be good to ask the same question on this side. It is just a question out of curiosity. The article Ancient Roman units of measurement states that 1 mile is equivalent in Ancient Rome to 5000 ft, while 1 league is 7500 ft. Hence: 1 league is 1.5 mile. However this article states that 1 league is 3 miles in Ancient Rome (quote: "The league was used by Ancient Rome, which defined it as being 3 miles."). Which is true? Brynnar 18:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It is my understanding that a league represented the distance an army in the field could travel in a day along with its baggage train, i.e. between campsites (as in "leaguer", more often the camp of a besieging army, cognate with lager and laager). This wasn't merely different according to the terrain, but had to allow time for everything else an army had to do like pitching camp, cooking, foraging, etc. - so it was surprisingly short in unfavourable conditions. PML.


 * This sounds like folk etymology to me. The Roman legions are known to have made 30 miles a day when travelling (including camp pitching, cooking etc), much much farther than one league. Rhialto 09:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

League (area)
I'd suggest separating out teh length and area units into separate articles, as their etymology (Anglo-saxon vs Iberian) is quite different. I'd also like to see a cite for the Texan league definition. It seems odd that a unit that descends from Iberian roots would be defined relative to Anglo-saxon units only, and not another Iberian-sourced unit. Rhialto 22:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It was used after Texas became an independent country, and after Texas later became part of the United States. The vara on which it is bases was likely officially redefined in English units during Texas independence (and possibly for some uses earlier); it may have differed from that used in other parts of Mexico, and from all the various ones used in different parts of Spain, before then. There is a huge 100+ volume Spanish encyclopedia listing a great many, perhaps hundreds of those variations.
 * I don't have a specific reference for the Texas ones handy; there are many sources giving the 33 inch redefinition of the vara. I think one would be Black's Law Dictionary, 4th edition, but I can't find my copy of that now.  Also Webster's Second, and likely James Michener's novel, Texas which discusses extensively the league and a labor grants. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Leagues in fiction
Perhaps have it, instead of listing several books where it's used, how about having it just say that it is commonly used in fictional literature, and give 1 or 2 examples? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.118.197.217 (talk) 01:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC).
 * I changed it. 62.20.156.137 22:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Was it you that added "We don't need to list every fantasy novel, one is enough!"? Well, now the impression is that David Eddings is the only one using it (except Jules Verne). Let me see if I can't clarify this further. CapnZapp (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Improper change in conversions
I reverted the latest change in conversions using templates, with undue precision, and with the original measurements no longer listed first. I'll do it again if it is done on this massive basis without discussion. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added "translations" into feet as well, since most of us (hundreds of millions) in the United States outside of medicine and science don't know or care to know metric (not saying that's how it should be... just the way it is). Gingermint (talk) 23:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"Marine league"?
The wording of the Hay-Herbert Treaty (Alaska boundary treaty, 1903) uses the phrase "ten marine leagues from the sea". Was a marine league the same as a terrestrial league?Skookum1 (talk) 05:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Usage...when did it become obsolete?
It'd be nice to have a little more information about the timeline of the unit's popularity; i.e., when it began to decline in popularity, why, and what replaced it (and did it survive/perish in some applications longer/faster than others?) OhNo itsJamie Talk 13:37, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

League of X degrees
This information is listed under Brazil however during the mid 1800s French scientists such as Fizeau did occasionally use them as well. For example Fizeau gives his velocity of light as "70,948 leagues [per second] of 25 to the degree" Thepossumdance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.15.63 (talk) 17:03, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Spanish Legua
Only ancient spanish "old Legua" was abolished by Philip II. The "new Legua" was official until adoption of metric system. You can read the Spanish article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.165.252.93 (talk • contribs) 07:00, 30 August 2011

Anthropic?
I removed the link from here to Anthropic units due to doubts over the notability or even existence of that concept in the context of measurements; there's some discussion at Talk:Anthropic units. Joe Kress has restored it, with this edit summary: "rv - see lede - league is the distance a person can walk in one hour, and indeed walking speed is typically 3 mph - it's anthropic, not anthropomorphic". In view of my personal doubts about the use of the word "anthropic" in this context, I'd be pleased and interested to see some reference for that statement. "Anthropic" does not have that meaning in any dictionary I own. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:49, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You are missing the point.  You want to delete the anthropic units article, or at least, you blanked 90% of it and then started removing links from several other articles.  This will create a navigation problem.  You fix the underlying problem, THEN figure out if links need to be added, edited, or removed.  Otherwise, when the issue is settled, you then make a bunch of people have to go back and do manual searches to find which articles had links removed instead of the far more efficient use of the "What links here" link that allows a person to quickly spot related articles.   Montanabw (talk) 17:10, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Temporal Hour?
I'm curious, was the hour over which a league was mentioned a temporal hour? That is, at one point, hours were defined to be 1/12 of the the light portion of a day, and consequently varied in length from winter to summer. Was the league measurement being used in conjunction with this definition of hour, so that leagues varied both by terrain and time of year?Plantdrew (talk) 21:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Use in fiction
I propose to eliminate the section on Use in fiction from this article, per WP:TRIVIA. It adds nothing to the understanding of what a league is. I note that we do not have similar trivia lists in articles on other units of measurement such as Foot (unit) and Pint. Does anyone disagree? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

League in Australia?
The article has an unsubstantiated claim that the term league is used in Australia, particularly western NSW, to refer to the distance travelled by car in an hour. I have lived and travelled for years in western NSW, and have never heard of this application of the word - or of anyone who has ever heard of it in this sense. It is interesting that a google search of this claim brings up several dozen sites, using word for word the statement in this article. Without any citation, they are all copying each other. I believe this section is a fiction inserted by someone as a joke, and recommend it be deleted. Ptilinopus (talk) 06:00, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Information move from the Mile article
The following information about leagues was copied from the Mile article. I have placed it here so that if someone finds any of it of use for this article in can be merged in.

-- PBS (talk) 16:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Notes
 * }

Sighting Distance
"The lack of any historical and global standard for the exact measure of a "league" can be accounted for by the variable elevation of the observer. For example, a crow's nest mounted atop a 50 ft. (15.2 m) mast extends the visible range to 9.35 miles (15.1 km)."

No where in the article is a correlation between sighting distance to the horizon and the length of a league made. I suggest the reference to sighting distance be removed, as sighting distances have nothing to do with the unit of measure, which, according to my research and the article itself, was based on the marching distance of a man over the course of an hour.

Shouldn't the Légua of 18 by degree be 107/(18&times;90) = 6172.83950617284... m?
Given that the original definition of the metre is $m$ = 90 degress of latitude (through the Paris meridian), the leagues of 20 and 25 to a degree are exactly 107/(20&times;90) = 5555.$\overline{5}$ m and 07/(25&times;90) = 4444.$\overline{4}$ m, as expected. But the Légua of 18 by degree = 6,172.4 metres doesn't fit the pattern, being 0.43950617 m short.

Any sources that can back up this apparent contradiction? Perhaps it's supposed to be 6172.84, and the 8 was lost in a typo? 71.41.210.146 (talk) 04:26, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * It's almost certainly a typo, yes, considering that the league of 18 to the degree has one less significant figure than the other two, but regardless, a 0.44 m difference over 6,172 m is a difference of about 71 parts per million, which I think is well over the measurement uncertainties of 16th–18th Century instruments. At any rate, be bold! --Wtrmute (talk) 10:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Nautical mile and the circumference of the Equator
In the table this is stated: Though the NM was defined on the basis of the minute, it varies from the equatorial minute, because at that time people could only estimate the circumference of the equator to be 40,000 km. However, as the NM was defined from the minute of latitude, not the minute of "equatorial longitude" (if such an expression exists in English), the statement that the difference is due to bad knowledge at the time, is not true but built on a misunderstanding. Thus I suggest that the cited comment is removed from the article. Fomalhaut76 (talk) 11:26, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

"Perhaps in some rural parts of Mexico, the [Spanish league] is still used..."
This sentence is not supported by the reference given (which is a glossary entry on the word "league" in a book covering events between 1897 and 1901), and furthermore, what is supported is already covered by the section on the definition of the league in Spain. Can anyone find a better source for this? Or should it just be removed? (Not to mention the elephant in the room, being the use of "Perhaps") Tkanusdialogue 15:21, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion/correction
There's much much more in the Chardon article already cited, some of which corrects the page's current errors, for anyone who has access to JSTOR papers. — Llywelyn II   04:49, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Origin of the term
I would like to remove the claim that a league "may have" originally been the distance a person could walk in an hour. Citation or not, it is patently ridiculous. Back in the time of ancient Celts nobody had wrist watches. An hour was meaningless to people walking around and would not have been used to define distance. FatBear1 (talk) 04:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Table "Miles" column needed
The table needs an additional column for Miles. In the United States we don't use meters or kilometers very much. Although we can convert a single distance fairly easily (I have 1609.344 permanently memorized), doing a zillion for comparison purposes is a pain, especially when we are trying to see if any might make some sense when reading books written hundreds of years ago. agb 143.43.152.60 (talk) 20:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)