Korean units

Korean name
Hangul	척관법
Hanja	尺貫法
Revised Romanization	cheokgwan-beop
McCune–Reischauer	ch'ŏkkwan-pŏp
IPA	[tɕʰʌk̚.k͈wan.p͈ʌp̚]
Hangul	척근법
Hanja	尺斤法
Revised Romanization	cheokgeun-beop
McCune–Reischauer	ch'ŏkkŭn-pŏp
IPA	[tɕʰʌk̚.k͈ɯn.p͈ʌp̚]

Korean units of measurement, called cheokgwan-beop (척관법; 尺貫法) or cheokgeun-beop (척근법; 尺斤法) in Korean, is the traditional system of measurement used by the people of the Korean peninsula. It is largely based on the Chinese system, with influence from Japanese standards imposed following its annexation of the Korean Empire in 1910. Both North and South Korea currently employ the metric system. Since 2007, South Korea has criminalized the use of Korean units in commercial contexts but informal use continues, especially of the pyeong as a measure of residential and commercial floorspace. North Korea continues to use the traditional units, although their standards are now derived from metric conversions.

Customary Korean units are a local adaption of the traditional Chinese system, which was adopted at a very early date. They were imposed and adjusted at various times by royal statutes. The details of the system have varied over time and location in Korea's history. Standardization—to the extent it occurred—was accomplished by officially sanctioned rulers, ropes, odometers, triangulation devices, weights, cups, and basins.

Although most of the measures operate on a decimal system, the standard form was to read out the units of each place (as, e.g., 3 cheok, 1 chon, 4 bun, 1 ri) rather than list them as a single number of the largest unit (as 3.141 cheok).

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Wikipedia