In the Canadian province of Quebec, two units, 17ᵗʰ – 20ᵗʰ centuries,
These units were applied to land granted under the French Seigneurial Tenure, prior to the British conquest, and were in use up to the 1970s. The arpent of Quebec comes from the arpent de Paris.
The Canadian Weights and Measures Act¹ of 1879 incorporated the perche de Paris definition of the linear arpent: “The arpent, when used as a measure of length, shall be one hundred and eighty French feet; and when used as a measure of superficies, shall contain thirty-two thousand four hundred square French feet.”
In Canada, the pied was legalized at 12.789 inches by an Act of Parliament² (July 7, 1919), making the linear arpent = 191.835 feet
1. 41 Victoria, Chapter 16, section 13(2).
2. 9—10 George V, Chapter 75, 1919. The definition of the “French foot” was repeated in The Weights and Measures Act, Revised 1988, Schedule 3.
The equivalents given in the United Nations's World Weights and Measures are incorrect.
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Last revised: 3 December 2003.