The rod is a unit of length in the imperial and US sytem and uses the symbol rod.
A rod (or perch, pole, lug) is equal to 16.5 feet or 5.5 yards.
It is a building surveyor's tool for measuring distance and is particularly useful as multiples of this unit can make up an exact acre. A perfect acre is a rectangle with edges 660 feet and 66 feet - which is 40 rods by 4 rods; i.e. 1 acre = 160 square rods.
The kilometre is a unit of length and is a multiple of the metre; an SI derived unit. It has the symbol km.
A kilometre is equal to 1000m, 1094 yards and 0.621 miles.
Kilometres is used to measure road distances in the US, though the UK is still using the imperial "sister" miles.