Kilometers Per Minute to Kilometers Per Hour (km/min to km/h)

1 kilometer per minute equals 60 kilometers per hour exactly.

1 kilometer per minute = 60 kilometers per hour

How to convert kilometers per minute to kilometers per hour

To convert kilometers per minute to kilometers per hour, multiply the number of kilometers per minute by 60. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilometers per hour by 0.01666666667 (rounded).

kilometers per hour = kilometers per minute × 60

Example: 10 kilometers per minute = 600 kilometers per hour.

About these units

Kilometer Per Minute (km/min)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One kilometer per minute is 60 km/h.

Racehorses and greyhounds give this unit a memorable benchmark. Wikipedia lists the top speed of a thoroughbred racehorse or racing greyhound as about 17 m/s, and multiplying by 60 gives 1,020 meters per minute, or 1.02 km/min. A round figure of one kilometer per minute is therefore 60 km/h, a pace such animals roughly reach in a sprint.

One kilometer per minute equals 1,000 m divided by 60 s, or about 16.67 m/s. Its main appeal is mental arithmetic: a vehicle at 60 km/h covers one kilometer every minute, so distances and times can be read off almost directly. The more common road unit, km/h, only replaced the French myriameter per hour during the nineteenth century, with the compound in use in the United States by 1866.

1 kilometer per minute = 16.66666667 meters per second (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (speed); Wikipedia: Kilometres per hour

Kilometer Per Hour (km/h)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The standard unit for road speeds in most countries: 1 km/h is about 0.2778 m/s.

Myriameters per hour came first, at least in French. Although the meter was defined in 1799, speeds were initially quoted using the myriameter of 10,000 meters, and the phrase myriamètres par heure appears in 1802. The Dutch adopted the kilometer in 1817 under the name mijl. English abbreviations only appeared in the late nineteenth century, and many competing forms followed, from k. p. h. in 1889 to KMPH in 1940. Reuters and The Economist still prefer kph.

SI treats km/h as a unit symbol, not an abbreviation, and it is the generally preferred form. The European Union required SI usage in 1972, and a 1975 directive requires km/h on speedometers in all languages. In the United States a 1988 NHTSA rule allowed km/h on speedometers. Exactly 3.6 km/h make 1 m/s, one mile per hour is exactly 1.609344 km/h, and one knot is exactly 1.852 km/h. Road signs and speed limits in most of the world use it.

1 kilometer per hour = 0.2777777778 meters per second (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilometres per hour; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

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