Cubic Feet to Liters (ft³ to L)

1 cubic foot equals 28.31684659 liters (rounded).

1 cubic foot = 28.31684659 liters

How to convert cubic feet to liters

To convert cubic feet to liters, multiply the number of cubic feet by 28.31684659. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply liters by 0.03531466672 (rounded).

liters = cubic feet × 28.31684659

Example: 10 cubic feet = 283.1684659 liters.

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

Cubic Foot (ft³)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

Exactly 28.316846592 liters (1,728 cubic inches). Used for refrigerator capacity, gas volume and shipping.

Cubic foot grew from the foot itself, a length unit with ancient origins, cubed into a volume of 1,728 cubic inches. Since the international foot was fixed at exactly 0.3048 meters, it equals exactly 28.316846592 liters. It sits at the center of the Anglo-American cubic system, a cube you could build from twelve-inch rulers, and it is about 7.48 US gallons or 6.23 imperial gallons.

In practice the cubic foot is the language of capacity and flow. Natural gas and household water are often billed per hundred cubic feet, written CCF, while gas reserves are reported in thousands and trillions of cubic feet. Rivers are measured in cubic feet per second, called cusecs, and fans and air compressors are rated in cubic feet per minute. To picture one, imagine a box a foot on each side holding a bit under seven and a half gallon jugs of water.

1 cubic foot = 28.31684659 liters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cubic foot; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume

Liter (L)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One cubic decimeter (1,000 cm³). The everyday metric unit of volume for drinks, fuel and cooking.

The liter was born in revolutionary France. In 1795 it was introduced as a republican unit and defined as one cubic decimeter, while the gram was tied to a cubic centimeter of water. The name comes from the older French litron, itself descended from a Byzantine Greek unit of weight, not volume. A small revision of the decimeter in 1798 left the first liter about 1.000974 of today's cubic decimeter, and in 1879 the international metric authorities adopted the liter with the symbol l.

The liter then took a strange detour. In 1901 it was redefined as the space taken up by one kilogram of pure water at its densest, which made it about 1.000028 cubic decimeters, and that muddled definition lasted until 1964, when it was restored to exactly one cubic decimeter. A capital L was added as an alternative symbol in 1979 because a lowercase l is easy to mistake for the digit 1, and NIST says L is the symbol to use in the United States. A liter of water is close to a kilogram, which is why a one-liter bottle feels like a kilo in the hand.

The liter is the reference unit for volume on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST Guide to the SI, Chapter 5: units outside the SI

Related conversions

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