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The kilometre (International spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: km; or ) or kilometer (American spelling) is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used officially for expressing distances between geographical places on land in most of the world; notable exceptions are the United States and the United Kingdom where the statute mile is the official unit used. ''k'' (pronounced ) is occasionally used in some English-speaking countries as an alternative for the word kilometre in colloquial writing and speech. A slang term for the kilometre in the US military is ''klick''. ==Pronunciation== There are two common pronunciations for the word. * * The former follows a pattern in English whereby metric units are pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, and the pronunciation of the actual base unit does not change irrespective of the prefix. It is generally preferred by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Many scientists and other users, particularly in countries where the metric system is not widely used, use the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable. The latter pronunciation follows the stress pattern used for the names of measuring instruments (such as ''micrometer'', ''barometer'', ''thermometer'', ''tachometer'' and ''speedometer''). The problem with this reasoning, however, is that the word ''meter'' in those usages refers to a measuring device, not a unit of length. The contrast is even more obvious in countries using the English rather than American spelling of the word ''metre''. When Australia introduced the metric system in 1975, the first pronunciation was declared official by the government's Metric Conversion Board. However, the Australian prime minister at the time, Gough Whitlam, insisted that the second pronunciation was the correct one because of the Greek origins of the two parts of the word. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「kilometre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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