Dutch units of measurement

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Today the Netherlands uses the metric system (SI). Before the 19th century, many towns and provinces used a wide variety of weights and measures, with no single national standard. Even so, these old units traveled with Dutch trade and ships to places like South Africa, New Amsterdam, and the Dutch East Indies.

Old units included:
- Weight: pond, ons, last, and an apothecaries’ system of weights.
- Distance: mijl and roede; smaller distances were based on body parts—el (ell), voet (foot), palm, and duim (inch).
- Area: morgen, hont, roede, and voet.
- Volume: okshoofd, aam, anker, stoop, and mingel.

In the early 19th century the Netherlands adopted a unified metric system, first in a modified form and then aligned with the international metric system in 1869. Some old names lingered, and a 1937 Act on Weights and Measures helped finish standardization. In everyday speech, ons and pond are sometimes used to mean about 100 g and 500 g.

Today the Netherlands uses the International System of Units (SI). In 2006 the Weights and Measures Act was replaced by the Metrology Act. The national body in charge is VSL (Van Swinden Laboratories), formerly the Nederlands Meetinstituut (NMi). It started in 1989 after privatization; in 2001 the sole shareholder became TNO Bedrijven, a holding company for the Dutch Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).