Technically it is an international miles. In the 1950s a number of countries including the U.K. and U.S. set the length of a yard as 0.9144 metres, making a mile equal to 1,609.344 km.
However the statute mile continued to be used in the U.S. for some purposes, and this is slightly shorter at only 1,609.347 km. But the N.I.S.T. have announced they are will be modernizing to support international trade by switching to the international mile from 2023.
Because nothing is more modern and international than adopting a sixty year old measurement that is only used in the U.K., U.S., Liberia, and some of their current and former colonies. All of which are rather small save for Myanmar.
incidentally, on a different forum I once confused someone from America by talking about miles and yards. They knew of the latter from American football, but did not understand it outside that context. Apparently you do not use it as an everyday unit there?
Here it is the normal unit for distances under a mile. There is a road sign in Leicester which amuses me as it has a slippery road warning sign, underneath it says "for 1720 yards" rather than rounding up. You also see no consistency in whether countdown signs to parking areas use "¼ mile" or "440 yards." The "880 yards" sign is less common, though.
But we do not use kms here which is why, though it was an impressively big number, I needed to translate Oldhamer's kilometrage (?) into miles to appreciate precisely how far it was.
