We know that in the metric system, prefixes help us to figure out how much a unit is when compared to other units.
So we know that when we look at the word 'centimeter' we see that centi- is the prefix to meter. The prefix centi- means 100 - and this means that there are 100 centimeters in 1 meter.
Therefore, if 1 meter is divided into 100 equal parts, each part would be equal to a centimeter.