Qin Shi Huangdi's Standardized Weight System

China, until the end of the Zhou dynasty, has never had an official standardized weight system widely available. That all changed with the coming of the qin dynasty. Qin Shi Huangdi was the first to make standardized weights, which has made trading and financial task so much easier. Starting with the littlest unit (hao) being a fraction of a human hair, it ranged to the biggest unit (li), which was half a kilometer. The biggest unit (li) was based on relative distance on the earth’s circumference and was used to measure long distances. The unit itself actually motivated people to get a more accurate measurement of earth circumference, and many of these units have become standardized units we still use today.