Mile Parliament, which set it as a distance of 1,760 yards. Under American law, however, the "statute mile" refers to the US survey mile. Foreign and historical units translated into English as miles usually employ a qualifier to describe the kind of mile being used but this may be omitted if it is obvious from the context, such as a discussion of the 2nd-century Antonine Itinerary describing its distances in terms of "miles" rather than "Roman miles". The mile has been variously abbreviated—with and without a trailing period—as m, M, ml, and mi. The American National Institute of Standards and Technology
Metric mile to the specifications of one quarter of a mile, 440 yards (402.336 m). Thus when the mile was run, the race was a four lap race. The Commonwealth officially converted to metric in the mid-1960s. The United States adopted metric rules in the mid to late 1970s, though some tracks are still constructed to be a quarter of a mile in length requiring calibrated painted lines to run metric races. Even in countries like the U.S. which do not embrace the metric system, most running tracks now have a lap distance of 400 metres in the innermost lane. The final