Liang (mass)

[8] Liang is mostly used in the traditional markets, and famous for measuring gold, silver and Chinese medicines.

[2] [4] On 7 January 1915, the Beiyang government promulgated a measurement law to use not only metric system as the standard but also a set of Chinese-style measures based directly on the Qing dynasty definitions (营造尺库平制).

On 16 February 1929, the Nationalist government adopted and promulgated The Weights and Measures Act[10] to adopt the metric system as the official standard and to limit the newer Chinese units of measurement to private sales and trade, effective on 1 January 1930.

The Japanese implemented the metric system, but the Taiwanese still followed their own habits and continued to use the old weights and measures of the Qing Dynasty.

Currently, Hong Kong law stipulates that one liang is equal to 1/16 jin, which is 37.79936375 grams.

A spring scale in Hong Kong shows conversions between metric system (in red), traditional Chinese unit (in green) and British Imperial Units (in blue)