Cubic Yard (yd³)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

27 cubic feet or 764.555 liters. Used for soil, gravel and concrete in the US.

1 cubic yard = 764.554858 liters (approximately).

About the cubic yard

Cubic yard is a cube three feet on each side, which makes it exactly 27 cubic feet or 46,656 cubic inches. In metric terms it is about 0.7646 cubic meters, or 764.55 liters. The unit follows the yard in the United States and Canada, and British railways once rated ballast wagons by it, with one Great Western Railway wagon holding 8 cubic yards.

A cubic yard is easier to picture than the number suggests. It holds about 202 US gallons, or nearly five oil barrels. That is a scale where bulk materials such as soil, gravel, mulch and concrete are naturally counted, so a patio slab or garden bed needs a handful of them. A handy rule of thumb follows from the arithmetic: one cubic yard spread one inch deep covers 324 square feet.

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

Cubic Yard conversion chart

1 cubic yard expressed in every other volume unit:

More US & Imperial units

• cubic inch (volume)
• cubic foot (volume)
• cubic mile (volume)
• inch (length)
• foot (length)
• yard (length)
• mile (length)
• thou (length)
• league (length)
• furlong (length)
• chain (length)
• rod (length)
• link (length)
• hand (length)
• pound (weight & mass)
• ounce (weight & mass)

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