Hand (unit)

The hand is a unit of measurement of length. It is now used only to measure the height of horses in some English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. This unit started in ancient Egypt and was originally based on the distance across a human hand. Today it is equal to four inches or 10.16 centimeters. It may be abbreviated to "h" or the plural "hh".

References

Category:Horses
Category:Units of length
Category:Imperial units