"The length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium."
This is the actual definition, but it's also pretty weird.
one ten-millionth of the shortest distance from the North Pole to the equator passing through Paris.
The stick of metal in Paris is just so people don't have to do measure the distance between the north pole and the equator each time they want to check their measuring tool.
They redefined it a few years ago to base all units on some objectively measurable natural constant. Because that stick of metal might still decay or warp or something and you don't always want to travel to France when you want to know the length of a meter. Much easier to measure the atoms and light you have on hand.