It's basically a matter of long established use of mercury instruments.
It's probably because of the mercury sphygmomanometer, the device that's been used for over a century to measure blood pressure. Since it actually measures pressure in terms of a column of mercury, that's how pressures are described. People still describe a "normal" blood pressure as 120/80 (mm of Hg) rather than 16k/10.6k (pascals).
Because of this you get a uniformity around the world.