Cubic Meters to Liters (m³ to L)

1 cubic meter equals 1,000 liters exactly.

1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters

How to convert cubic meters to liters

To convert cubic meters to liters, multiply the number of cubic meters by 1,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply liters by 0.001.

liters = cubic meters × 1,000

Example: 10 cubic meters = 10,000 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 Meter (m³)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI derived unit of volume: 1,000 liters. Used for water supply, gas, concrete and shipping space.

When the metric system was set up, the cube whose edge is one meter became its natural large unit of volume. A cubic meter also went by other names: kiloliter, now rarely used, and stere, still applied to stacked firewood. In modern SI it is the coherent derived unit of volume, and the liter is a convenience unit defined from it as one thousandth of a cubic meter.

A cubic meter is large by everyday standards. It holds 1,000 liters, and pure water at its densest weighs almost exactly one tonne in that space, which is how the metric tonne and the cubic meter ended up so conveniently paired. It is the unit of choice for water supply, gas, timber, concrete and shipping space, where freight is often quoted in CBM. For a picture, about 6.29 oil barrels or 264 US gallons fit in one, and an Olympic swimming pool, at least 2 meters deep, holds roughly 2,500 of them.

1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cubic metre; Wikipedia: Olympic-size swimming pool; NIST Guide to the SI, Chapter 5: units outside the SI

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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