The meter was originally defined so that the great circle distance from the equator to the north pole would be exactly 10 million meters.
Yep, and when that didn’t work out due to the Earth not being a perfect sphere they changed it to light speed, and they have changed even that number more than once. For Earthly measures I prefer Nautical Miles. They work just fine both as a pilot and a scientist. Next thing you know the UN folks will want us to change to a ten hour day with 100 decihours, with 1000 millihours.