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Unit of length equal to 66 feet, used especially in the U.S. public land surveys. The original measuring instrument (Gunter's chain) was literally a chain consisting of 100 iron links, each 7.92 inches long. Steel-ribbon tapes began to supersede chains around 1900, but surveying tapes are often still called "chains" and measuring with a tape is often called "chaining". The chain is a convenient unit in cadastral surveys because 10 square chains equal 1 acre.
A lightyear is the distance that light travels in one year. Since there are various definitions for the length of a year, there are correspondingly slightly different values for a lightyear. One lightyear corresponds to about 9.461e15 m, 5.879e12 mi, or 63239.7 AU, or 0.3066 pc.