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A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer, symbol: km) is a unit of length equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words khilia = thousand and metro = count/measure). It is approximately equal to 0.621 miles, 1094 yards or 3281 feet.
Slang terms for kilometre include "klick" (sometimes spelt "click" or "klik") and "kay" (or "k"). All these slang terms can also refer to kilometres per hour.
Unicode has symbols for "km" (㎞), for square kilometre (㎢) and for cubic kilometre (㎦); however, they are useful only in CJK texts, where they are equal in size to one Chinese character.
hectometre << kilometre << megametre
Pronunciation
Traditionally, the pronunciation of the word kilometre has placed the stress on the first syllable, in line with other metric prefixes. However, the pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable is becoming more common.
See also
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