A decametre represents exactly ten metres in the International System of Units. Like the decagram, it falls into an awkward middle ground and is almost entirely ignored in technical fields. Surveyors, engineers and builders prefer to use metres for this scale to avoid conversion errors and keep notation standard.
Heard on the job
The old survey map lists the boundary in decametres, so multiply by ten to get our working distance in metres.
Insider tip
If you encounter the symbol dam in older civil engineering texts, convert it to metres immediately to match standard drawing practices.
Also heard as
- dekameter
- dam
Do not mix it up with
- Decimetre: A decametre is ten metres, whereas a decimetre is one-tenth of a metre.