New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

started

metrication Metrication or metrification is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. All over the world, countries have transitioned from local and traditional Unit of measurement, units of measurement to the metric system. This ...

in 1969 with the establishment of the Metric Advisory Board (MAB) and fully completed metrication on 14 December 1976. Until the 1970s, New Zealand traditionally used the

imperial system The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed th ...

for measurement, which was due to historically being a colony of the United Kingdom.

Strategy toward metrication

Prior to metrication, the accounting system was decimalised on 10 July 1967, with one

dollar Dollar is the name of more than 25 currencies. The United States dollar, named after the international currency known as the Spanish dollar, was established in 1792 and is the first so named that still survives. Others include the Australian d ...

equal to one hundred cents, or ten shillings in the pre-decimal system. The New Zealand metric symbol was introduced in March 1971. To give metrication a human face, a baby girl named Jeannie Preddey became the mascot, known as Little Miss Metric. News and pictures of her progress were intermingled with press releases about the progress of metrication. By the end of 1972, the temperature scale, road signs, and measures used in the sale of such items as

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

and

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...

had been metricated. Only a few letters voiced outright opposition to the changeover.

Exceptions

Although New Zealand completed metrication in 1976, a 1992 study of university students found that at that time, there was a continued use of imperial units for birth weight and human height alongside metric units. On the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of the metric system in December 2006, the New Zealand Consumer Affairs Minister,

Judith Tizard Judith Ngaire Tizard (born 3 January 1956) is a former New Zealand politician, and a member of the New Zealand Labour Party, Labour Party. Early life and career Tizard was born at Auckland's St Helen's maternity hospital in Pitt Street in 1956. ...

, commented that "Now 30 years on the metric system is part of our daily lives" but noted some continuing use of imperial measurements in some birth announcements of baby weights and also with people's heights. A few uses of imperial measurements remain, mostly to do with interoperability: * The aviation industry is one of the last major users of the imperial system: altitude and airport elevation are measured in feet, distances in navigation in nautical miles, and speeds in knots. All other aspects (fuel quantity, aircraft weight, runway length, etc.) use metric. * Where exact fitting of parts is required, such as between nuts and bolts, or between tyres and wheel rims. * Since the late-1990s, display sizes for screens on televisions, computer monitors, tablets and mobile phones have reverted to having their

diagonal In geometry, a diagonal is a line segment joining two vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, when those vertices are not on the same edge. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word ''diagonal'' derives from the ancient Greek � ...

s advertised solely in inches; the legality of such advertising has not been tested in court.Weights and Measures
NZ government Ministry of Business

References

External links

Metrication in New Zealand
{{metrication

Science and technology in New Zealand