The Meter:

The basic unit of length, distance, linear dimension, or displacement (all dissimilar terms meaning necessarily the same thing) is the meter, represented by the lowercase non-italicized English letter m. Initially, the meter was designated as the distance among two scratches on a platinum bar put on display in Paris, France. The innovative idea was that there ought to be 10 million (10⁷) meters along a great circle between the North Pole and the equator of Earth, as it would be measured when the route passed via Paris as shown in figure below. Mountains, bodies of water, and other barriers were unnoticed; the Earth was imagined to be an entirely round, smooth ball. The circumference of the Earth is around 40 million (4.0 x 10⁷) m, give or takes a little depending on which big circle about the globe you prefer.

These days, the meter is defined more accurately as the distance a beam of light travels via a perfect vacuum in 3.33564095 billionths of a second, which is, 3.33564095 x 10^-9 second. This is around the length of an adult's full striding whenever walking at a brisk pace.

Figure: There are around 10 million meters between the Earth's North Pole and the equator.