Volume Converter

Volume converter: milliliters, liters, cups, and gallons

This converter handles twelve volume units spanning metric and both US and UK customary measures: milliliters, liters, cubic meters, US teaspoons and tablespoons, US cups, pints, quarts, gallons, and US and UK fluid ounces. Cooking, fuel, and shipping all use different systems, and the US/UK split trips people up — so each is listed explicitly. Enter a capacity in one row and the rest are worked out from it.

Metric volume — clean and decimal

• 1 liter = 1,000 mL
• 1 cubic meter (m³) = 1,000 liters
• 1 cubic centimeter (cc) = 1 mL

Metric volume is built on the liter, which is exactly one cubic decimeter. The neat consequence is that 1 mL of water weighs almost exactly 1 gram, making metric recipes easy to weigh.

US customary volume

• 1 US teaspoon = 4.92892 mL
• 1 US tablespoon = 14.7868 mL = 3 teaspoons
• 1 US cup = 236.588 mL = 8 US fl oz
• 1 US pint = 473.176 mL = 2 cups
• 1 US quart = 946.353 mL = 2 pints
• 1 US gallon = 3.78541 L = 4 quarts

The US vs UK trap

The most common volume error is mixing US and imperial units. A UK gallon (4.54609 L) is about 20% larger than a US gallon (3.78541 L), and UK fluid ounces (28.4131 mL) are slightly smaller than US ones (29.5735 mL). Old British recipes and fuel-economy figures use imperial measures; American ones use US measures. Always confirm which system a number came from before converting.

Cooking conversions that matter

When scaling recipes, remember that 1 US cup = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons. Dry and liquid ingredients use the same volume units here, but their weights differ wildly — a cup of flour and a cup of water are not the same mass. For baking precision, convert the volume to milliliters and weigh where you can.

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