A decametre or dekametre (American spelling: dekameter, earlier decameter; symbol dam, sometimes unofficially Dm or dkm) is a very rarely used unit of length in the metric system, equal to ten metres, the SI base unit of length. It can be written in scientific notation as 7001100000000000000♠1×10 m or 1 E+1 m (exponential notation), meaning 1 × 10 m.