To understand the concept of feet to centimeters conversion, we first need to understand feet and centimeters separately. Both feet and centimeters are units of measurement and used in different part of the world.

There are two major systems of measurement: the metric system and the non-metric system. The metric system consists of millimeters, centimeters, decimeter, meter and going to kilometer. The second group of measurement called the non-metric system consists of inch, foot, yard and going to mile. Thus you can see that when we are talking about converting feet to centimeter, we are not only talking about two different sizes, but conversion between two different systems of measurement.

First let us take the concept of feet, which is the plural of foot. One foot is made up of twelve inches. Going upwards three feet make up a yard. Foot as unit of measurement belongs to the non-metric system of measurement. Foot was first standardized in 1959 in United States. Prior to that there was a lot of land survey information stored, which was measured in feet but with different value. The concept of feet developed in terms of distance measured when a person walks one step. This was a rough estimate and we could get an exact measurement only after the value was standardized.

At the other end of spectrum is the metric system. Ten millimeters make up one centimeter and one thousand millimeters make up one meter. Moving ahead one thousand meters make up on kilometer. Meter is the standard unit of length in International system of units. Though, because of previous and historical records, feet and yard still continue to be used in some countries, the standard unit of length used in scientific communications and cross cultural representations is the meter. Meter is officially defined as the distance traveled by light in vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds. There are other ways too in which scientists have tried to define meter like using a standard metal bar as the exact length. At one time, it was even defined in terms of Krypton-8 emissions wavelength. It is pertinent to note that the more carefully and accurately we are able to define meter, the more accurate our conversion like feet to centimeter becomes.

To understand the conversion from feet to centimeters, let us try to make this simpler. The U.S. standards define feet in terms of meters as one foot equals 1200/3937 meters. Now one meter gives us one hundred centimeters. This for one feet we get 1200/3937 * 100 centimeters. This translates into 30.48 centimeters. Thus we have created the conversion of one unit of non-metric system into one unit of metric system.

Now what can be the advantage of our calculation for conversion between and centimeter. A little understanding shows that this single conversion factor can be used to convert any unit in the metric system to any unit in non-metric system. For example, we can accurately define the relationship between mile and kilometer using the same feet to centimeter conversion factor. Thus for so many units of measurement across two different systems of measurement, we have reduced our task of determining accuracy to only one unit, currently meter, and conversion to any one conversion factor. This is the advantage of understanding just one measurement conversion factor. In our case it was feet to centimeter.