page_title: Tape measure
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Tape measure / Design / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: An 8m/26' Stanley LevelLock brand tape measure.
context_page_description: A tape measure or measuring tape is a flexible ruler used to measure size or distance.
  It consists of a ribbon of cloth, plastic, fibre glass, or metal strip with linear-measurement markings. It is a common measuring tool. Its design allows for a measure of great length to be easily carried in pocket or toolkit and permits one to measure around curves or corners. Today it is ubiquitous, even appearing in miniature form as a keychain fob, or novelty item. Surveyors use tape measures in lengths of over 100 m.
context_section_description: Justus Roe, a surveyor and tape-maker by trade, made the longest tape measure in 1956, at 600 feet (183 m).
  The Northern Virginia Surveyors Association presented the 600-foot, gold-plated surveyor's tape measure to Mickey Mantle in 1956.
  Some tapes sold in the United States have additional marks in the shape of small black diamonds, which appear every 19.2 inches (488 mm).  These are used to mark out equal spacing for joists (five joists or trusses per US standard 8-foot (2,438 mm) length of building material).
  Many US tapes also have special markings every 16 inches (406 mm), which is a US standard interval for studs in construction. Three spaces of 16 inches make exactly 4 feet (1,219 mm) which is the US commercial width of a sheet of plywood, gyprock or particle board.
  The sale of dual Metric/US Customary scale measuring tapes is slowly becoming common in the United States. For example, in some Walmarts there are Hyper Tough brand tapes available in both US customary units and Metric units. Unlike US rules, of which an overwhelming majority contain both centimeter and inch scales, tape measures are longer and thus traditionally have had scales in both inches and feet & inches. So, the inclusion of a metric scale requires the measuring device either to contain 3 scales of measurement or the elimination of one of the US Customary scales.
  The use of millimeter only tape measures for housing construction is a part of the US metric building code. This code does not permit the use of centimeters. Millimeters produce whole (integer) numbers, reduce arithmetic errors, thus decreasing wastage due to such errors. The US made measuring tape shown on the right is interesting in that it is a "Reverse Measuring Tape", where the measurements can be read from right to left just as well as they can be read when the tape is used from left to right.
  Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Cameroon, India, Kenya, Mauritius, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe all use millimeters only as their unit for building construction.  In accord with ISO 2848, the separation between studs is 600 millimeters which has 24 different divisors easing calculation. The metric roll-up tape shown is a millimeter only tape measure. The dual scale tape measure is in both US Customary Inches and Centimeters.
caption: A dual scale inch/centimeter tape measure.
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