li

   1. see line

   2. a traditional unit of distance in China. A Confucian proverb widely misquoted in the West as "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" actually says "a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step." Although the traditional li was approximately 1/3 mile or 500 meters, the late Imperial governments of China used a li of 1800 ch'ih, which is 2115 feet, about 0.401 mile, or 644.65 meters. In modern China, the li equals exactly 0.5 kilometer or 500 meters. In Chinese, the kilometer itself is usually called a gongli, or "metric li" (see gong-).