Catty

The catty, kati or , pronounced as jīn in Mandarin and gan in Cantonese, is a traditional Chinese unit of mass used across East and Southeast Asia, notably for weighing food and other groceries. Related units include the picul, equal to 100 catties, and the tael (also spelled tahil, in Malay/Indonesian), which is 116 of a catty. A stone is a former unit used in Hong Kong equal to 120 catties and a gwan (鈞) is 30 catties. Catty or kati is still used in Southeast Asia as a unit of measurement in some contexts especially by the significant Overseas Chinese populations across the region, particularly in Malaysia and Singapore.

Catty
Chinese name
Chinese
Vietnamese name
Vietnamesecân
Korean name
Hangul
Hanja
Japanese name
Kanji
Hiraganaきん
Malay name
Malaykati
Manchu name
Manchu scriptᡤᡳᠩᡤᡝᠨ
Möllendorffginggen
Catty
Unit systemtraditional Chinese unit
Unit ofmass
Symbol
Conversions
1  in ...... is equal to ...
   Chinese unit   16
   10 (in Mainland China)
   Mainland China   0.5 kg
   Japan
   Korea
   Taiwan
   Thailand
   
   0.6 kg
   Vietnam   0.6045 kg
   Hong Kong   0.60478982 kg
   Malaysia   0.60479 kg
   Singapore   0.6048 kg
Conversions (imperial)
1 imp  in ...... is equal to ...
   Hong Kong
   Malaysia
   Singapore
   
   1+1/3 lb

The catty is traditionally equivalent to around 1+13 pound avoirdupois, formalised as 604.78982 grams in Hong Kong,[1] 604.5 grams historically in Vietnam,[2] 604.79 grams in Malaysia[3] and 604.8 grams in Singapore.[4] In some countries, the weight has been rounded to 600 grams (Taiwan,[5] Japan, Korea[6] and Thailand). In mainland China, the catty (more commonly translated as jin within China) has been rounded to 500 grams and is referred to as the market catty (市斤 shìjīn) in order to distinguish it from the "common catty" (公斤 gōngjīn), or kilogram, and it is subdivided into 10 taels rather than the usual 16.

Etymology

The word catty comes from Malay kati, meaning the weight. It has also been borrowed into English as caddy, meaning a container for storing tea.

See also

References

  1. "Weights and Measures Ordinance". Laws of Hong Kong.
  2. "Vietnam, weights". Historical Vietnamese measurements of mass.
  3. "Weights and Measures Act 1972". Laws of Malaysia. Archived from the original on 2014-02-01.
  4. "Weights and Measures Act". Statutes of the Republic of Singapore.
  5. Weights and Measures in Use in Taiwan Archived 2010-12-29 at the Wayback Machine from the Republic of China Yearbook – Taiwan 2001.
  6. "Regulation on Approval and Notification of Herbal (crude) Medicinal Preparations, Etc". Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
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