Convert gallons to pints

There are eight pints in a gallon. To convert, you multiply the number of gallons by eight: pints = gallons × 8. Two gallons make 16 pints, five gallons make 40 pints, and twelve gallons make 96 pints.

The eight comes from two smaller steps. A gallon splits into four quarts, and each quart splits into two pints. The US tables of measure put it on a single line, “4 quarts = 1 gallon = 231 cubic inches = 8 pints”, and the British tables state “8 pints = 1 gallon” separately[1]. You can check each step on its own with the gallons to quarts converter and the quarts to pints converter.

The eight holds when the pint comes from the same system as the gallon. The converter starts with the US gallon and the US liquid pint. If your gallons come from an American recipe and you pour into British pint glasses, set Pint type to Imperial (UK), and 1 US gal becomes 6.6614 pints. The other way round, an imperial gallon gives 9.6076 US pints. If you need the answer the other way round, use the pints to gallons converter; the Swap order button takes both selector settings there with it.

The US gallon is exactly 231 cubic inches, which is 3.785411784 liters[1]. It is the gallon on American gas pumps, milk jugs and paint cans. The imperial gallon used in the UK is larger, at 4.54609 liters, and it was defined as the volume of ten pounds of water[2]. The gallons to liters converter handles both.

A pint is an eighth of a gallon. The US liquid pint holds 16 US fluid ounces, or 473.18 milliliters. The imperial pint holds 20 imperial fluid ounces, or 568.26 milliliters[1]. The imperial fluid ounce is slightly smaller than the American one, but the British pint has four more of them, so it ends up about a fifth larger. The pints to ml converter gives the exact milliliters for each pint.

The difference shows in the old rhyme “a pint’s a pound the world around”. A US pint of water weighs about 1.043 pounds, which is close enough for the saying[2]. An imperial pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter, because the imperial gallon was built on ten pounds of water and a pint is an eighth of it.

In the United States both units are part of everyday shopping. The model packaging regulation lists milk bottles in five sizes, 1/2 pt, 1 pt, 1 qt, 1/2 gal and 1 gal[6], so the whole range runs from a single cup of milk to eight pints. The same rule lets a carton of ice cream say 1/2 gal instead of 64 fl oz.

In the United Kingdom trade has moved to metric units, but the pint survives in three places: draught beer, cider, and milk in returnable bottles[7]. A four-pint bottle of milk is half an imperial gallon, or 2.27 liters.

Canada defines its gallon the same way as the UK, at 4.54609 liters, and splits it into eight pints[8]. A Canadian gallon of 4.55 liters and an American gallon of 3.79 liters both hold eight pints, but the Canadian pints are the larger ones.