Gaz, metre and width converter
One gaz is 36 inches — the same as a yard. The harder question is how much more cloth you need when the thaan is narrow, and whether a per-gaz rate is really cheaper than a per-metre one. All three are below.
Convert a length
Enter an amount.
Same suit, different width
Enter your measurements once. This lays the pieces out on each common width and reports what each one actually costs you in gaz.
| Width | Gaz | Metres | vs 58" | What changes |
|---|
Per gaz or per metre — which shop is cheaper?
Shops quote both, and a metre is 9% more cloth than a gaz. Comparing the two rates directly is the mistake this settles.
Enter both rates.
Where the gaz comes from, and why it is not 33 inches
A gaz — guz, from Persian — is a South Asian unit of length that settled at one yard, 36 inches or 0.9144 metres, in modern use.
It was not always one number. Historical values ranged from about 24 to 41 inches, and the same word meant different lengths in different provinces: roughly 36 inches in 19th-century Bengal, 33 inches in Madras and 27 inches in Bombay. When British revenue surveys needed a fixed standard for land, they settled on 33 inches, and that value still appears in old land records.
The cloth trade never used the land figure. A 19th-century account of the units notes plainly that the cloth merchant kept a gaz of his own, equal to two cubits — an English yard. That split is why you will still find a 33-inch gaz quoted for property and a 36-inch gaz quoted at the fabric counter, and why a converter aimed at land measurement gives the wrong answer for cloth.
Sources: Wikipedia, Guz; sizes.com unit reference for guz; Pakistan local-unit reference at qscivilcalc.com, which lists gaz at approximately 36 inches alongside hath and karam. Checked 19 August 2026.
Rule of thumb: at the fabric counter, gaz = yard = 36". If someone is talking about a plot of land, ask which gaz they mean.
Fixed conversions
| From | Inches | Metres | Gaz |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 gaz (cloth) | 36 | 0.9144 | 1 |
| 1 metre | 39.37 | 1 | 1.0936 |
| 1 yard | 36 | 0.9144 | 1 |
| 2.5 m dupatta | 98.4 | 2.5 | 2.734 |
| 1 hath (cubit) | 18 | 0.4572 | 0.5 |
Questions people ask
Is 1 gaz 36 inches or 33 inches?
For cloth, 36 inches. The 33-inch figure comes from colonial land-survey standardisation and survives in property contexts, not at the fabric counter.
Is 3 metres more than 3 gaz?
Yes, by about 10 inches. Three metres is 118.1 inches; three gaz is 108 inches. That is roughly a quarter of a gaz difference, which matters when you are buying to the last inch.
Why do brands sell in metres but shops sell in gaz?
Mills and brands work in metric because their looms and export paperwork do. Retail cloth counters kept the traditional gaz. Both describe the same cloth — only the unit differs.
Does narrow cloth always cost more overall?
Not always, but usually. Narrow cloth needs more running length, so a lower per-gaz rate can still work out dearer once you buy the extra length. The width table above gives you the length; multiply it by each shop's rate to compare properly.