** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender ** Hello, everyone,
I have made a map of worldwide metric usage showing each country’s degree of usage. It is available as a download from: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fx8arg3b0vewb1.png&data=05%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C56932d908eb74c9eae5008dbd5b0875d%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C638338726398378803%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tbAP5Y%2B3VS04Sb5ZgATlTcYFJ9HRtNsJLzFtuibcW90%3D&reserved=0 or from the Reddit Metric forum as one of the items in the Resources list in the sidebar at: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fmetric&data=05%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C56932d908eb74c9eae5008dbd5b0875d%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C638338726398378803%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=hXamxQZ7%2Fyg3gRwRR7xAAn2UYJGsfSiPoz1S5THEmEk%3D&reserved=0<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fmetric&data=05%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C56932d908eb74c9eae5008dbd5b0875d%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C638338726398378803%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=hXamxQZ7%2Fyg3gRwRR7xAAn2UYJGsfSiPoz1S5THEmEk%3D&reserved=0> The countries are grouped as follows: Orange (USA) – Metric system use is mostly voluntary. No plan to fully convert to the metric system. Non-metric units in everyday use. Blue (UK and Territories) – Metric for most purposes but road signs still use miles and miles per hour. Draught beer and cider, bottled milk, still sold in pints. Other non-metric units in occasional use. Yellow (Belize, Canada, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago) Metric units officially in use but substantial use of non-metric units. Light Green (Hong Kong, Malaysia, Myanamar, Somalia) Metric conversion complete but non-metric units often in use. Dark Green (The rest of the world) Fully metric but non-metric units used occasionally. The text above is the legend used on the map. I was able to be quite specific about the US and UK, but less precise about the other classifications as each country is different in their metric use and non-use*. My definition of a metric country is one which uses the metric system for: 1. All forms of trade and commerce, eg retail, real estate, commodities for export or import etc, 2. Manufacturing and construction, 3. Services, such as medicine, 4. Public announcements such as news and weather, information on government services, etc 5. Distances and speed limits on public roads. Things like aviation, where altitudes in feet and speed in knots are the subject of international treaty, or car tyres which have mixed inch and millimetre measures from a worldwide standard, don’t count towards a country’s metrication or lack of it, as everyone is affected equally. I had some assistance from people on Reddit, to advise me of their county’s metric use. If I was told that a country’s “metricness” was similar to that of Canada I put it in that group, and the same for the light green colours. I suspect that Africa is not as metric as I have painted it, but I don’t have any information. A couple of notes on specific countries: Liberia and Myanamar are now metric, having completed their metrication. I made a post on the subreddit for Liberia and received a very helpful reply dicussing both Liberia and Myanmar. Go here to read it: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FMetric%2Fcomments%2F11c84zm%2Fgood_news_from_liberia_and_myanmar%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C56932d908eb74c9eae5008dbd5b0875d%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C638338726398378803%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=pp3mK6KrSMUuNrnNi5XjkceZcU8Iq4LMooibkkhRZdE%3D&reserved=0 All we need to do is dispose of the canard the the US, Liberia and Myanmar are the world’s only three non-metric counties. I put them in the light green group. Puerto Rico is a US Territory. The Federal Highways Administration insists that they should use Miles and mph etc on highway signs, but most other things are metric. Belize is officially metric. In its National Metrology Act it says SI is the official measurement system, it is still legal to use Imperial measures (as it was once a British colony, British Honduras,) and the Minister may authourise the use of American measures. They don’t look like solid supporters of metrication, but with only 441 000 people there probably isn’t the political will or the money to enforce metrication, or educate people about ti. (I’ve just seen some tiny islands which I haven’t colour-coded, so I’ll do that when I do the next (and hopefully, final) re-iteration of this map in a few months time.) I have checked the colours for usability by people with colour blindness and it looks OK to me, but feedback from colour blind people would be helpful. Apart from posting the map on Reddit and Imgur, can anyone suggest where to post it on the internet to spread the news around? *Leo-Tolstoy: Happy families are all alike: every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Anna Karenina. Described as the Anna Karenina principle<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAnna_Karenina_principle&data=05%7C01%7Cusma%40lists.colostate.edu%7C56932d908eb74c9eae5008dbd5b0875d%7Cafb58802ff7a4bb1ab21367ff2ecfc8b%7C0%7C0%7C638338726398378803%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=bfkAUhW7%2F5o%2FRFi%2F%2F4dkSXDCuuJxbFux%2FWzugliS770%3D&reserved=0> on Wikipedia. Best wishes, Peter Goodyear, Melbourne, Australia peterg...@gmail.com<mailto:peterg...@gmail.com> Peter Goodyear p...@internode.on.net<mailto:p...@internode.on.net>
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