Cubic Yards to Imperial Gallons (yd³ to gal (UK))

1 cubic yard equals 168.1785574 imperial gallons (rounded).

1 cubic yard = 168.1785574 imperial gallons

How to convert cubic yards to imperial gallons

To convert cubic yards to imperial gallons, multiply the number of cubic yards by 168.1785574. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply imperial gallons by 0.005946061231 (rounded).

imperial gallons = cubic yards × 168.1785574

Example: 10 cubic yards = 1,681.785574 imperial gallons.

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 Yard (yd³)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

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

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.

1 cubic yard = 764.554858 liters (approximately).

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

Imperial Gallon (gal (UK))

Imperial (British)Current unit

Exactly 4.54609 liters, the volume of 10 pounds of water. Used for fuel economy in the UK (miles per gallon) and historically across the Commonwealth.

Britain unified its confusing gallons by act of Parliament in 1824. Before then, the country used separate ones for wine at 231 cubic inches, ale at 282 and corn at about 268.8. The 1824 reform replaced them with the imperial gallon, defined as the volume of ten pounds of distilled water, calculated at 277.274 cubic inches. A new definition in 1889 slightly changed that, and after the liter was restored to exactly a cubic decimeter in 1964, Canada and then the UK in 1976 adopted the exact value of 4.54609 liters.

Because the United States kept the 231-cubic-inch wine gallon, an imperial gallon is about 20 percent larger than a US gallon. That explains why a car rated at 40 miles per gallon in Britain is less impressive in American terms, since it comes to roughly 33 US miles per gallon. Ireland dropped the gallon as a primary trade unit at the end of 1993 and the UK at the end of September 1995, but it lives on in British fuel-economy figures and older recipes.

1 imperial gallon = 4.54609 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Gallon; UK Weights and Measures Act 1985, Schedule 1

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