 In 1814, Portugal became the first country not part of the French Empire to officially adopt the metric system.Spain found it expedient in 1858 to follow the French example and within a decade Latin America had also adopted the metric system, or had already adopted the system, such as the case of Chile by 1848.There was considerable resistance to metrication in the United Kingdom and in the United States, but once the United Kingdom announced its metrication program in 1965, the Commonwealth followed suit.