archin

Archin, also transliterated arshin or arşın, is a historical unit of length used in regions of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, including the Russian Empire, the Caucasus, Iran, and the Ottoman Empire. It is typically defined as about 0.71 meters (approximately 28 inches), though the exact value varied by region and era.

Origin and usage: The term derives from Persian arshin (arşın) and its Turkic-language variants. The archin served as a practical measure in textile trades, clothing manufacture, and everyday distance estimation, functioning as a convenient unit between the smaller foot and the larger yard or meter-based systems found elsewhere.

Regional variation and standardization: In Imperial Russia the arshin is often cited as 711.2 millimeters. In Ottoman and other Turkish contexts, the arşın ranged by province and period, commonly reported roughly between 0.68 and 0.71 meters. These values reflected local customary standards prior to metric reforms in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Decline and legacy: With the adoption of metric measurement, the archin fell from official use in most areas, surviving primarily in historical documents, literature, and ethnographic studies. It remains of interest to historians of measurement, textiles, and everyday life in historical societies.

See also: Units of length; arshin; historical measurement systems.