Friday, October 25, 2019

NGS and NIST to Retire U.S. Survey Foot after 2022

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NGS have co-issued a Federal Register Notice (FRN) to retire the U.S. survey foot as part of modernizing the National Spatial Reference System. Since 1893, the United States has defined the foot based on the meter. The definition adopted at that time was 1 foot = 0.3048006 meter approximately. In 1959, the definition was revised to 1 foot = 0.3048 meter exactly. This change was made to support U.S. industry and international trade, and resolved a long-standing discrepancy between the definition used by U.S. industries and that used by other countries. The 1959 redefinition of the foot was legally binding and intended for the entire U.S. A single exception allowed temporary continued use of the previous definition exclusively for geodetic surveying. This joint decision by NIST and NGS will end that exception after 2022.

For more information, contact: Michael.Dennis