Metric Cups to Cubic Meters (cup to m³)
1 metric cup equals 0.00025 cubic meters exactly.
How to convert metric cups to cubic meters
To convert metric cups to cubic meters, multiply the number of metric cups by 0.00025. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply cubic meters by 4,000.
cubic meters = metric cups × 0.00025
Example: 10 metric cups = 0.0025 cubic meters.
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
Metric Cup (cup)
Exactly 250 mL. The cup used in Australia, New Zealand and most Commonwealth recipes.
A metric cup is a cup tamed by decimal thinking. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and some other former British colonies that metricated use a round 250 milliliters, exactly a quarter of a liter. Canada's older cup had been eight imperial fluid ounces, about 227.3 mL, so the metric version is noticeably larger, and Canadian recipes now usually use the 250 mL cup.
The metric cup is not an SI unit, only a practical convention, and it differs from the US cups in useful ways. It is about 6 percent larger than the US customary cup at 236.6 mL and about 4 percent larger than the 240 mL US label cup. Its arithmetic is simple: four cups make a liter, and a cup holds 50 metric teaspoons or 16 and two thirds tablespoons of 15 mL. Many recipes outside the US skip cups entirely and give dry ingredients in grams, because volume is a rough proxy for flour.
1 metric cup = 0.25 liters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Metric cup; Wikipedia: Cup (unit)
Cubic Meter (m³)
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
Related conversions
- Cubic meters to metric cups (reverse)
- Metric cups to liters
- Metric cups to milliliters
- Metric cups to US gallons
- Metric cups to US cups
- Metric cups to US fluid ounces
- Metric cups to cubic centimeters
- Metric cups to US quarts
- Metric cups to US pints
- Metric cups to US tablespoons
- Metric cups to US teaspoons
- Metric cups to metric tablespoons
- Metric cups to metric teaspoons
- Liters to cubic meters
- Milliliters to cubic meters
- US gallons to cubic meters
- US cups to cubic meters
- US fluid ounces to cubic meters
- Cubic centimeters to cubic meters
- US quarts to cubic meters
- US pints to cubic meters
- US tablespoons to cubic meters
- US teaspoons to cubic meters
- Metric tablespoons to cubic meters
- Metric teaspoons to cubic meters
See all volume units.