How many AU is 1 rod?

One rod equals approximately 3.361 x 10-11 AU.

How many rods are in 1 AU?

One AU contains approximately 2.976 x 1010 rods (about 29.76 billion).

Is this conversion used?

Never. Farmland and planetary orbits exist at completely different scales.

Rods to Astronomical Units (rd to au) Converter

1 rd = 3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹ au

1 Rod equals 3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹ Astronomical Units (1 rd = 3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹ au). Convert Rods to Astronomical Units with formula, table, and examples.

One rod equals approximately 3.361 x 10^-11 astronomical units. The Earth-Sun distance (1 AU) is about 29.76 billion rods. The rod measures English farmland; the AU measures planetary orbits.

How to Convert Rods to Astronomical Units

au = rd × 3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹

Multiply the value in Rods by 3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹

Take your value in Rods
Multiply by 3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹
Read the result in Astronomical Units

Common Rods to Astronomical Units Conversions

Rods (rd)	Astronomical Units (au)	Status
1 rd	3.36181 × 10⁻¹¹ au
10 rd	3.36181 × 10⁻¹⁰ au
100 rd	3.36181 × 10⁻⁹ au
1,000 rd	3.36181 × 10⁻⁸ au
10,000 rd	3.36181 × 10⁻⁷ au
100,000 rd	0.000003 au
1,000,000 rd	0.00003 au
10,000,000 rd	0.0003 au
100,000,000 rd	0.0034 au

Good to Know About Rods to Astronomical Units Conversion

The rod measured the fields that fed medieval communities. The AU measures the orbit that warms those fields. One is human-scale agriculture; the other is planetary-scale astronomy. Both describe the relationship between the Sun and food production, just at different levels of abstraction.

Rods to Astronomical Units: What You Need to Know

1 AU = 29.76 billion rods. A 10-acre field (10 square chains = 40 x 100 rods) is vanishingly small compared to planetary distances. The rod was designed for fields; the AU for orbits.

What is a Rod? rd

Exactly 16.5 feet or 5.5 yards (5.0292 m). Also called a perch or pole. Historically used in land surveying.

Imperial land surveying historical

Learn more about Rod →

What is a Astronomical Unit? au

Exactly 149,597,870,700 meters by IAU 2012 definition. Roughly the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. Used for distances within our solar system.

Astronomical solar system distances astronomy planetary science

Learn more about Astronomical Unit →

Going the other way? Use our Astronomical Units to Rods converter.

Rods to Astronomical Units FAQ

One rod equals approximately 3.361 x 10^-11 AU.
One AU contains approximately 2.976 x 10¹⁰ rods (about 29.76 billion).
Never. Farmland and planetary orbits exist at completely different scales.

Non-Frequently Asked Questions About Rods to Astronomical Units

Questions nobody should ask - but someone did.

A strip field was about 40 rods long. 1 AU = 29.76 billion rods = 744 million strip fields. If every field in medieval England (about 5 million strips) were placed end-to-end, they would span about 0.67% of the Earth-Sun distance. All English farmland reaches less than 1% of the way to the Sun.
At 1 rod per minute: 29.76 billion minutes = 56,621 years. The surveyor would arrive around the year 58,647. The Sun might still be there. The surveyor would not.
An acre is 10 square chains = 4,047 m². The area of a disc to Neptune's orbit (30 AU radius) is about 2.83 x 10²⁵ m² = about 7 x 10²¹ acres. The solar system is 7 sextillion acres of mostly empty space. Property taxes would be low.