Why are there 360 degrees in a circle?
By Sebastian Wright
Angle can be measured in two units. Radians and degrees.
In radians, $\pi$ means half circle as $2*\pi*r$ represents the circumference of whole circle. Thus this unit can be easily justified.
But I am curious about degrees. Why a circle has only 360 degrees? Why not 1000 degrees. A quarter circle can have 250 degrees. Is it just a convention like Kg or metre, or there is some reason for choosing 360 degrees.
I hope I am clear with my question. If you want more details about what I am asking, let me know.
$\endgroup$ 91 Answer
$\begingroup$There is an angle measure called a "gradian," which divides a right angle into 100 equal pieces. See
There are advantages to using a base-60 system. First, 60 (and 360) have lots of small divisors. Second, in the case of measuring angles, the special angles of 30-degrees and 60-degrees come out even. In the gradient system, the 30-degree angle is $33 $ $1/3$ (ick.)
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