Volume Unit Converter – Check All 260 Units

Type a number in the Convert from field and pick its unit from the list below the field, then pick the unit you want under Convert to. The result appears as you type. It works the other way round too: type a number in the Convert to field and the converter fills in the first one.

Both lists hold the same 260 units in 31 groups. The most used units come first, followed by cooking measures, US liquid, imperial and US dry measures, cubic inches, feet and yards, barrels and old British units, and then metric units, apothecaries' and shipping units, wine bottles, old measures from other countries, Japanese, Chinese, ancient, biblical and unusual units.

You don't have to look for a unit in the list. Type it with the number, for example “3 tbsp”, “8 fl oz” or “5 m3”, and the converter sets the unit next to the field and tells you below it which one it chose. Cubic units work with or without the superscript, so “ft3”, “ft^3” and “ft³” all mean cubic feet.

Some names cover several units. A gallon is 20% larger in Britain than in the US, and a pint can be liquid or dry. When you type a number with just “gallon” or “pint”, the converter picks the US unit and adds a line below the field saying that the other versions are in the list. Old units without a single agreed value show the value we use and, where sources give one, the range.

The Copy result button copies the number from the Convert to field, and Clear all empties both fields.

A US customary cup holds 236.5882365 mL, which is half a US pint, or 8 US fluid ounces[1]. Nutrition labels in the US round it to 240 mL, and the same rule sets the teaspoon at 5 mL and the tablespoon at 15 mL[2]. Australia, New Zealand and Canada cook with a metric cup of 250 mL[3], and Japan with a cup of 200 mL[4]. Older British recipes measured with everyday vessels such as the breakfast cup, typically 8 imperial fluid ounces, a rough size next to the exact US cup[3].

Spoons follow the same split. A US tablespoon holds about 14.79 mL and a US teaspoon about 4.93 mL, so three teaspoons make a tablespoon. The international metric tablespoon holds 15 mL, and in most places a tablespoon is three teaspoons. Australia is the exception: its tablespoon holds 20 mL, or four teaspoons[5]. A metric dessert spoon holds 10 mL, two teaspoons[6].

American recipes also use a dash, a pinch and a smidgen: 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 of a teaspoon. No standards body defines them, so treat them as a rough guide[7]. The single-pair converters cups to mL, tablespoons to mL and teaspoons to mL have ready-made tables for the most common amounts.

A US gallon holds 3.785411784 L and an imperial gallon 4.54609 L, about 20% more. The American colonists kept the English wine gallon of 231 cubic inches, while Britain replaced it in 1824 with the imperial gallon, the volume of 10 pounds of water[8]. British law now defines the imperial gallon as exactly 4.546 09 cubic decimeters[9].

The smaller units split differently too. The US gallon has 128 fluid ounces and the imperial gallon 160[1], so a US pint holds 16 US fluid ounces and an imperial pint 20 imperial ones. That makes a pint of beer in a British pub about 568 mL, against about 473 mL for a US pint. A US fluid ounce is about 29.57 mL and an imperial fluid ounce about 28.41 mL. In both systems a quart is a quarter of a gallon and a gill a quarter of a pint.

The US also keeps a separate set of dry measures. The bushel of 2,150.42 cubic inches, about 35.24 L, splits into 4 pecks and 32 dry quarts[1]. A dry quart is about 16% larger than a liquid quart, so a quart of berries and a quart of milk are not the same volume.

The fifth, a fifth of a US gallon or about 757 mL, was the standard liquor bottle in the US until 1980. The 750 mL bottle that replaced it is still sometimes called a “metric fifth”[10]. For gallons alone, the gallons to liters converter switches between the US and imperial gallon.

A cubic foot holds about 7.481 US gallons, or 28.316846592 L. A cubic inch is 16.387064 cm³ and a cubic yard 27 cubic feet, or about 0.7646 m³[1]. Engine displacement in the US was often given in cubic inches, written CID[11], so a 350 CID engine is 5.7354724 L.

Several trade units are built on the cubic foot. A board foot of lumber is a board one inch thick and one foot square, 144 cubic inches[12]. A cord of firewood is a stack 4 feet high, 4 feet wide and 8 feet long, 128 cubic feet[13][1]. An acre-foot is the water that covers an acre one foot deep, about 1,233.5 m³, and reservoir capacities in the western US are often given in thousands of acre-feet[14]. An acre-inch is a twelfth of an acre-foot.

Natural gas prices in the US are quoted per Ccf, a hundred cubic feet, or per Mcf, a thousand cubic feet[15]. One Ccf is about 2.83 m³. Shipping uses the cubic foot as well. A register ton is 100 cubic feet, and gross register tonnage gave a ship's total internal volume in these tons[16]. A measurement ton, or freight ton, is 40 cubic feet and sets the charge for cargo lighter than seawater[17]. Britain's water ton is 224 imperial gallons[1].

It depends on the barrel. By custom, an oil barrel holds 42 US gallons, 158.987294928 L, and that is the barrel used for crude oil and petroleum statistics. Federal beer tax counts a barrel as 31 gallons, many state laws fix the “barrel for liquids” at 31½ gallons, and federal law also recognizes a 40-gallon barrel for proof spirits[1]. Beer kegs are fractions of the 31-gallon barrel: halves, thirds, quarters, sixths and eighths[18], so a half-barrel keg holds 15.5 gallons.

British breweries count in imperial gallons. A beer barrel is 36 imperial gallons, 163.65924 L. A firkin is a quarter barrel, 9 gallons, and the most common cask for cask ale; a kilderkin is half a barrel, and a pin half a firkin. A beer hogshead is 54 gallons[19]. The old English wine casks used wine gallons instead: a hogshead of 63 and a tun of 252[20].

French winemakers age wine in 225-liter Bordeaux barriques and 228-liter Burgundy pièces, and a Burgundy feuillette holds 114 liters, half a pièce[21]. The barrels to gallons converter handles the oil and beer barrels on their own.

A standard bottle of wine or Champagne holds 0.75 L, a half bottle 0.375 L and a magnum two bottles, 1.5 L. Larger Champagne bottles carry biblical and historical names: a jeroboam holds 3 L, a rehoboam 4.5 L, a methuselah 6 L, a salmanazar 9 L, a balthazar 12 L and a nebuchadnezzar 15 L. Beyond those come the solomon (18 L), the primat (27 L) and the melchizedek (30 L), which holds 40 standard bottles[22].

A cubic meter holds 1,000 L. The liter is simply another name for the cubic decimeter, so a cubic centimeter equals a milliliter[23]. That is why “cc” on a syringe and mL on a measuring cup mean the same amount. Each step between cubic units is a factor of 1,000, because length, width and height all change at once: a cube one meter across holds 10 × 10 × 10 cubes one decimeter across.

The liter may be written with a lowercase l or a capital L. The capital was allowed in 1979 so that l would not be mistaken for the digit 1, and L is the preferred symbol in the United States[23]. The converter reads both, as well as mL and ml.

Liters take the same prefixes as meters. Lab pipettes measure microliters, and blood tests report the average size of a red blood cell (MCV) in femtoliters, the same as cubic micrometers. A billion cubic meters, the unit of natural gas statistics often written bcm, is exactly one cubic kilometer, 1,000,000,000 m³.

A stere is one cubic meter of stacked firewood, gaps between the logs included. France calls it the stère and Germany the Ster, and the solid wood in it is usually about 0.65 to 0.7 cubic meter[24]. A North American cord, about 3.62 m³, holds about 3.6 steres.

Pharmacists in Britain and the US once measured medicine in minims and fluid drams, and British pharmacists in fluid scruples as well[1]. A fluid dram is an eighth of a fluid ounce and a minim a sixtieth of a fluid dram, so a US fluid dram is about 3.697 mL and a US minim about 0.0616 mL.

Pharmacists now round a drop to 0.05 mL, 20 drops to the milliliter[25]. A real drop depends on the liquid and the dropper, so treat a result in drops as a guide and follow the dosing instructions on the medicine. The drops to mL converter covers the same conversion with a table.

Before 1824 England used several gallons at once. The ale gallon held 282 cubic inches, about 4.621 L, the wine gallon 231 cubic inches, and the corn gallon, an eighth of the Winchester bushel, about 268.8 cubic inches[8]. The wine gallon survives as the US gallon, and the corn gallon became the US dry gallon. Ireland counted a gallon as 217.6 cubic inches[26], and Scotland served ale by a pint of about 1.7 liters[27], roughly three English pints.

Poland and Russia

Poland's basic measure was the garniec. A reform in 1764 fixed the Crown garniec at 3.77 liters, and in 1766 Lithuania got its own garniec of 2.82 liters. A barrel of liquid held 72 garniec and a korzec of grain 32[28]. Congress Poland rounded these to metric values in 1819: a garniec of 4 liters, a korzec of 128 liters and a kwarta of exactly one liter[29]. Russia measured liquids by the vedro, or bucket, which from 1835 held 30 pounds of distilled water, 750.57 cubic inches[30].

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

A Bavarian law of 1869 made the Bavarian Maß the 208th part of the Bavarian Scheffel, about 1.069 L[31]. In Vienna the Maß held 1.414724 liters, the Seidel a quarter of that and the Eimer 40 Maß, while grain was measured by the Metzen of 61.48682 liters[32]. Bohemia took over the Austrian measures in 1765[33], and Galicia used them too[34].

France, Spain, Portugal and Italy

The Paris pinte held 48 cubic inches of the French royal foot, about 0.952 L, and a muid of wine 288 pintes[35]. Spanish tables of 1852 give the Castilian cántara of wine as 16.133 liters and the fanega of grain as 55.501 liters[36]. Lisbon measured wine in canadas of 1.4 liters and grain in alqueires of 13.8 liters[37]. Every Italian state had its own measures before unification, and official tables of 1877 gave their metric values[38]; the Florentine barile of wine held 45.584 liters, split into 20 fiaschi[39].

A gō holds about 180.4 mL. Japan's Weights and Measures Act of 1891 fixed the shō at 2401/1331 liters, about 1.804 L, and made the gō a tenth of it, the to ten shō and the koku a hundred[40]. The gō is still the serving size for rice and sake, and sake and shochu are sold in 1.8-liter bottles called isshōbin, “one-shō bottles”[41]. The 180 mL cup that comes with rice cookers is a rounded gō[3]. China set its market units in 1929 so that the sheng is exactly one liter[42].

The Roman amphora was a cubic Roman foot. The congius was an eighth of it and the sextarius a sixth of a congius, but surviving measuring vessels differ, and scholars put the sextarius between 500 and 580 mL[43]. The converter takes the Roman foot as 0.296 m, the same as in our length converter, which gives an amphora of approx. 25.9 L. Grain was measured by the modius, a third of an amphora.

Greek liquid measures started from the xestes, equal to the Roman sextarius: a chous held 6 xestai and a metretes 12 choes. Grain was measured by the choinix of 2 xestai and the medimnos of 48 choinikes[44]. In Egypt the heqat of about 4.8 liters measured grain, and the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus says a heqat makes 10 hinu[45]. In Mesopotamia the base unit was the sila of about one liter, and a gur held 300 sila[46].

The Bible measures grain by the ephah and liquids by the bath. Ezekiel says the two are the same size, each a tenth of a homer (Ezekiel 45:11), and that ten baths make a cor (Ezekiel 45:14). An omer is a tenth of an ephah (Exodus 16:36). Smaller measures are the seah, the kab, the hin and the log[47].

No single value exists for the bath. NIV footnotes put it at about 6 gallons or 22 liters[48], while the Jewish Encyclopedia gives 36.44 liters[47]. The converter counts the bath as approx. 22 L and shows the range from the sources below the fields. In Isaiah 5:10 ten acres of vineyard yield only a bath of wine, and the bronze Sea of Solomon's temple held two thousand baths (1 Kings 7:26), about 44,000 liters by the NIV footnote[48].

The New Testament uses Greek and Roman measures. The six stone jars at Cana held two or three metretes each (John 2:6), which the King James Version renders as “two or three firkins apiece”[49][50] and the NIV as twenty to thirty gallons[48]. In Luke 16:6–7 the debtors owe a hundred baths of oil and a hundred cors of wheat[50]. The NIV renders the oil as nine hundred gallons, about 3,000 liters, so here it counts a bath as about 9 gallons[48]. The “bushel” of Matthew 5:15 in the King James Version is the Roman modius, and the “measure of wheat” of Revelation 6:6 is a choinix[49][50].

The Olympic swimming pool serves as an informal unit for large volumes: 50 meters long, 25 meters wide and, at a nominal depth of 2 meters, 2,500 cubic meters of water[51]. Australians compare water volumes with Sydney Harbour: one sydharb is about 562 gigaliters[52], or approx. 220,000 Olympic pools.