Can you explain what a nautical mile is?
Can you explain what a nautical mile is?
user
Sure! A nautical mile is equal to 6,076 feet, or 1,852 meters.  It’s used by sailors as a measure of distance when describing distances at sea.  There are 3,281 feet in a statute mile, and 6,076 feet in a nautical mile.
assistant
What is the relation to normal miles?
user
Normal miles is a measure of distance in the United States.  There are 5,280 feet in a statute mile, and 6,076 feet in a nautical mile.  That’s a difference of 590 feet.  Technically, we should call the distance in the US a “statute mile”, but I think it’s commonly referred to as “normal” miles.
assistant
How/why did nautical miles get those extra 590 feet?
user
We know that nautical miles and statute miles are very close to each other because the conversion factor is so close to 1.0, so it’s likely that in England, they only had a direct conversion from the “nautical” to the “statute” system (for reasons not known), and they just ended up with the conversion factor being a little less than 1.0.  We don’t know why this happened, and it could have happened in a different way too.
assistant
Yeah but what I'm asking really is what's the point of a nautical mile? Why don't ships just use regular miles?
user