Banana Converter
Any length in bananas, and bananas back into any length. Banana for scale, taken literally.
Handy banana facts
| Thing | Length | Standard bananas |
|---|---|---|
| A foot | 12 in | 1.7 |
| A metre | 39.37 in | 5.6 |
| American football field (goal line to goal line) | 100 yd | 514 |
| A kilometre | 1,000 m | 5,624 |
| A mile | 5,280 ft | 9,051 |
| Eiffel Tower | 330 m | 1,856 |
| Burj Khalifa | 828 m | 4,657 |
| Mount Everest (above sea level) | 8,849 m | 49,769 |
| Marathon | 42.195 km | 237,318 |
| Earth's equator | 40,075 km | 225 million |
| Earth to Moon (average) | 384,400 km | 2.16 billion |
| Earth to Sun (1 AU) | 149.6 million km | 841 billion |
How long is a banana, really
There is no SI banana. The supermarket Cavendish, which is nearly every banana sold in North America and Europe, runs 7 to 8 inches (18 to 20 cm) measured along the outside of the curve; USDA grading for the US market puts "large" at 8 inches and up and "small" below 7. This converter uses 7 inches as the standard banana because that is where the middle of the bunch sits, and because it is the number most people guess. Plantains are bigger, Lady Finger bananas are about 4 inches, and the wild Musa species they all descend from are all over the place.
Bananas are measured along the curve, so a line of bananas laid end to end is slightly shorter than the sum of their lengths. The converter ignores this. If you are using it to settle a bet, agree on the banana first.
Why "banana for scale"
The phrase comes from a 2005 photo of a television with a banana in the shot for size, and became the internet's default unit of informal measurement because nearly everyone can picture one. It is a joke, but it is a joke about something real: humans are bad at reading absolute size from a photo and good at comparison. A banana is a reference object that needs no explanation. This page is the obvious next step.
Banana sizes: USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, United States Standards for Grades of Bananas (2012); Cavendish dimensions from UN FAO banana market reports.