Which is longer... a land or nautical "mile"?

Question

What's the difference, and why is there/should there be an actual length difference between the two?

Answer 1

A land mile is 5280 feet

A nautical mile is 6076

Answer 2

A nautical mile is longer than a statute mile. A  nautical mile is 6/5 of a statute mile, and is 1 minute of latitude on the equator. Nautical miles are used by ships and aircraft as they are easier to use with spherical trig on earth (navigation).

Regards,

Dan

Answer 3

The Nautical Mile is longer than a Statute mile.  It is determined to be 1 minute of Latitude (6,076.1155 feet) but does not change in length as a previous poster suggests.  THe distance between minutes of longitude get shorter, the further away from the equator you go but the distance betwee minutes of latitude remain unchanged.  Also, a "Knot" is a unit of speed, not distance.  1 Knot is how fast you are going if you cover 1 nautical mile in an hour.  If you covered 10 miles, you'd be travelling at 10 Knots.

Answer 4

Nautical "mile"  which is A Knot==approx. 1&1/4 Miles (land)

The Knot was dubbed the nautical mile by seamen many years ago.  The Knot was A International recognized unit of measure.  The mile is slowly being replaced by european measurments--Schools no longer recognize the mile - they instead teach and use meters.  The mile derives from inches & feet.

Answer 5

A nautical mile is longer.  A land mile is 1760 yards and a nautical mile is 2000 yards.

Answer 6

A nautical mile is technicly one minute of latitude or a 60th of a degree which means a nautical mile is technicaly speaking a measure of angle not distance.

this means that a nautical mile varies depending on where you are in the world a the earth is not a perfect sphere.

in general a nautical mile is longer than a land mile, the poster above has the average length of a nautical mile