Australian Tablespoons to Milliliters (tbsp (AU) to mL)

1 Australian tablespoon equals 20 milliliters exactly.

1 Australian tablespoon = 20 milliliters

How to convert Australian tablespoons to milliliters

To convert Australian tablespoons to milliliters, multiply the number of Australian tablespoons by 20. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply milliliters by 0.05.

milliliters = Australian tablespoons × 20

Example: 10 Australian tablespoons = 200 milliliters.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Australian Tablespoon (tbsp (AU))

Cooking & barCurrent unit

Exactly 20 mL, which makes it larger than the 15 mL tablespoon used in the US and UK.

Australia is the odd one out among tablespoon sizes. Wikipedia reports that the Metric Conversion Board promulgated a 20 mL definition in the 1970s as part of metrication, and calls it the Australian official definition. That is about 1 and a third of the 15 mL international metric tablespoon, and exactly four metric teaspoons of 5 mL each.

Elsewhere the spoon is smaller. The common UK and US definitions are both exactly 15 mL, while the older customary spoons were half a fluid ounce, about 14.2 mL in Britain and 14.8 mL in the United States. The extra volume matters to a cook following an Australian recipe abroad, where the same tablespoon of liquid ingredients would come up a quarter short. The figure used here is exactly 0.02 liter, and Wikipedia's article is tagged as needing more citations.

1 Australian tablespoon = 0.02 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Tablespoon; NIST SP 811 Appendix B.8

Milliliter (mL)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a liter, or exactly 1 cubic centimeter. Used for medicine, cooking and small containers.

Milliliters inherit everything from the liter, since the prefix simply means one thousandth. Because the liter is a cubic decimeter, a milliliter works out to exactly one cubic centimeter, a coincidence the metric system built in on purpose so that volume, length and mass interlock. One milliliter of water has a mass of about one gram, so a dosing syringe, a kitchen scale and a measuring jug can all be checked against one another.

Today milliliters dominate wherever small amounts must be measured precisely: medicine, flavorings, perfume, shampoo and the fine print on drink labels. Spelling is a mild regional split, with uppercase mL preferred in the United States, Canada and Australia and lowercase ml common in the UK and Europe. For scale, a US teaspoon is just under 5 mL, a US tablespoon is about 14.8 mL, and the US nutrition-label cup is exactly 240 mL, so one such cup is 240 of these tiny units.

1 milliliter = 0.001 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures

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