Apple has removed the ability to quickly switch between miles and kilometers when using Apple Maps on iOS 16, but it hasn’t completely gone — it’s just not that easy to find.
In iOS 15, you can switch between miles and kilometers from your obvious location: Maps settings in the Settings app. An even faster way to change distance measurements is in Maps itself, where you click on your profile picture, select Settings, and share.
Both of these options are missing from Maps on iOS 16. Instead, the distance unit is tied directly to your system settings, which can be found in Settings -> General -> Language & Region -> Measurement System. Instead of choosing miles or kilometers, you have to choose between “US”, “UK”and “metric”, which can be confusing.
Difference between US, UK and Metric
Apple uses the International Components for Unicode (ICU) set of globalization libraries for units of measurement, including US, UK, and metric units, as shown in the settings above.
- USA: Usual system of measurement is used. For distance, these are inches, feet, and miles. Other commonly used units of measurement include yards, US pints, US quarts, US gallons, US fluid ounces, acres, teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, ounces, pounds, and tons.
- United Kingdom: A combination of metric units and imperial units is used. For distance, these are inches, feet, and miles. Other commonly used units of measure include yards, imperial pints, imperial quarts, imperial gallons, imperial fluid ounces, acres, milliliters, ounces, pounds, and tons.
- Metric: Uses the International System of Units (SI). Distances are centimeters, meters and kilometers. Other commonly used units of measurement include liters, milliliters, hectares, grams, kilograms, and metric tons.
So if you want Apple Maps to use miles, you can choose US or UK. To use kilometers, you need to select a metric instead.
(1) metric measurement system, (2) measurement system options, (3) US and UK measurement system
Keep in mind that these settings will change everything on your device, so apps like Measure and Weather may display different units of measurement when you switch. However, the temperature (Celsius or Fahrenheit) is configured separately for the entire system, either through the Weather app or through Settings -> General -> Language & Region -> Temperature.