Metrication of Belleland

**Belleland** began its metrication programme with the establishment of the Bellian Metrication Board in 1964. The conversion of measurements—metrication—commenced subsequently in 1968, under the direction of the Board and actively proceeded until the Board was disbanded in 1979. However, conversion to metric was not completed until the 1990s, with the property industry continuing to use the old imperial units two decades after most of the areas became metric-only, with the changeover occurred in 1998.

## History

Metric units became first legal for use in 1920 when Belleland signed the Treaty of Metre. However, Imperial system of units were most commonly used until the 1970s. In 1960, SI units were adopted as a worldwide system of measurement by international agreement at the General Conference on Weights and Measures.

In 1964, the Bellian Metrication Board was established to facilitate the conversion of measurements from imperial to metric. A television advertisement was produced to prepare the public for a changeover. A timeline of major developments is as follows:

* 1969 – The country's space program switched to metric-only.
* 1970 – The Bellian wool industry switched to metric-only.
* 1973 – Horse racing converted in July and weather forecasting converted in October.
* 1974 – All primary schools were teaching the metric system alone: many had been teaching both imperial and metric for some years. All secondary schools were now using the metric system.
* 1975 – Large scale conversion across industries throughout the year, including packaged grains, dairy products, eggs, hospitality, building, timber, paper, printing, meteorological services, postal services, communications, road transport, travel, textiles, gas, electricity, surveying, sport, water supply, mining, metallurgy, chemicals, petroleum, and automotive services. Most beverages, aside from spirits, also converted to metric units by the end of the year. The conversion of road signs took place in October. There was a publicity campaign to prepare the public.
* 1977 – The building and construction industry completed its change to metric measurements (within two years) by January.
* 1978 – All packaged goods were labelled in metric units, and the air transport, food, energy, machine tool, electronic, electrical engineering, and appliance manufacturing industries converted to metric.
* 1998 – With the property industry, which had been using imperial units, switched to metric-only, metric units became the only system of legal measurements in Belleland.

## By application

### Road signs

An important and very visible sign of metric conversion in Belleland was the change in road signs and the accompanying traffic regulations; "M-day" for this change was 1 October 1975. Because of careful planning, almost every road sign in Belleland was converted within a month. This was achieved by installing covered metric signs alongside the imperial signs before the change and then removing the imperial sign and uncovering the metric sign during the month of conversion.

While road signs could not all be changed at the same time, there was little chance of confusion as to what any speed limit sign meant during this short change-over period. In Belleland, imperial speed limit signs in miles per hour had the words "SPEED LIMIT" above the numeric limit as specified in the American MUTCD, but the metric speed limit signs in kilometres per hour (the ones that replaced the imperial signs) had the a numeric limit on a red circle, as this is done in Europe and many other countries, due to international compliance reasons.

Road distance signs were also converted during this period. To avoid confusion as to whether the distance indicated was in miles or kilometres new **major** distance signs had affixed to them a temporary yellow plate showing the symbol **km**. On the many new kilometre signs on minor roads, a yellow plate which showed the corresponding number of miles was affixed under the now permanent kilometre distance indication. These temporary plates were removed after about one year.