Rock Climbing Ratings

UIAA rating system
The Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme (UIAA) rating scale is used mostly in Western Germany and Austria. The North American Grading System

The French rating system
The French rating system is slowly becoming the international standard, at least for comparing really hard climbs. It’s used in France , but also in Spain and Italy.

The British grading system
The British have two different ratings: an adjectival grading and a technical grading. The adjectival grading says something about the overall difficulty of the climb. The technical grading says something about the most difficult move of the climb. So, an easy climb with a difficult move would have a relatively low adjectival grading with a high technical rating (like E4/6c). A sustained climb with long runouts and poor pro - a real British climb - but no real difficult technical moves then has a high adjectival rating with a low technical rating (like E7/6b).

USA (YDS)
The Yosemite Decimal System is the North American rating system. The first number in the YDS designates the class of the climb (always "5" for free climbs), the second number defines the difficulty.

 YDS                UIAA                  FR                  GB
------              ------              ------              ------
  5.2                  II                   2                  <4
  5.3                 III                   3                  <4
  5.4                  IV                  4a                  <4
  5.5                 IV+                  4b                  4a
  5.6                  V-                 4b+         4a/vs 4b/vs
  5.7                   V                  4c 4b/vs 4b/hvs 4c/hvs
  5.8                  V+                  5a       4c/hvs 5a/hvs
  5.9                 VI-                  5b        5a/hvs 5a/E1
5.10a                  VI                  5c         5a/E1 5b/E1
5.10b                 VI+                  6a         5b/E1 5b/E2
5.10c                VII-                 6a+         5b/E2 5c/E2
5.10d                 VII                  
6b               5c/E2
5.11a            VII/VII+                 6b+         5c/E3 6a/E3
5.11b                VII+                  6c               6a/E3
5.11c               VIII-                 6c+               6a/E4
5.11d                VIII                  7a               6a/E4
5.12a               VIII+                 7a+               6b/E5
5.12b           VIII+/IX-                  7b               6b/E5
5.12c                 IX-                 7b+         6b/E5 6b/E6
5.12d                  IX                  7c               6c/E6
5.13a                 IX+                 7c+               6c/E7
5.13b              IX+/X-                  8a         6c/E7 7a/E7
5.13c                  X-                 8a+         7a/E7 7a/E8
5.13d                   X                  8b               7a/E8
5.14a                  X+                 8b+               7b/E8
5.14b              X+/XI-                  8c         7b/E8 
7b/E9
5.14c                 XI-                 8c+         7b/E9 7c/E9
5.14d                  XI                  8d               7c/E9

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