China's Market Chaos: When Every Province Had Its Own Units

While Europe was standardizing around metric measurements in the 19th century, China remained a patchwork of competing measurement systems that would have impressed medieval Europe with their complexity. Every province, sometimes every major city, maintained its own versions of basic units. A "li" (roughly equivalent to a kilometer) could vary by 30% depending on whether you were in Beijing or Shanghai. Weight measurements varied so dramatically that merchants needed conversion specialists just to conduct business across provincial boundaries.

The situation reached absurd extremes in markets. A catty (斤, jin) of rice in northern China weighed significantly less than a catty of rice in the south. Silk merchants developed elaborate conversion charts that looked more like mathematical treatises than trade documents. The famous 19th-century British diplomat Sir Robert Hart described Chinese measurement as "a maze in which only the initiated can find their way, and in which foreigners must employ Chinese guides or risk constant error."

Different crafts maintained their own specialized units. Carpenters used one set of measurements, masons another, silk weavers a third. Even within single trades, regional variations were enormous. A furniture maker trained in Beijing would be completely lost trying to follow specifications in Guangzhou. The Chinese foot (chi) ranged from about 22 centimeters to over 35 centimeters depending on the region and application.

The imperial government periodically attempted to impose standard measurements, but enforcement was nearly impossible across such a vast territory with limited central authority. Local governors often ignored imperial edicts about standardization, preferring to maintain systems that favored their regional interests. Merchants developed elaborate networks of relationships and specialized knowledge just to navigate the measurement chaos.

This system persisted well into the 20th century. Even after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, complete measurement standardization took decades to achieve. Traditional units remained in common use alongside official metric measurements well into the 1980s. Street vendors still sold vegetables by the catty while official documents used kilograms. The transition required not just changing laws but changing the deeply ingrained habits of hundreds of millions of people.

China's measurement chaos illustrated how political fragmentation inevitably leads to measurement fragmentation. Without strong central authority willing and able to enforce standardization, measurement systems naturally drift apart as different regions optimize for their own needs and circumstances.