Metric Cups to US Cups (cup to cup)
1 metric cup equals 1.056688209 US cups (rounded).
How to convert metric cups to US cups
To convert metric cups to US cups, multiply the number of metric cups by 1.056688209. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply US cups by 0.946352946.
US cups = metric cups × 1.056688209
Example: 10 metric cups = 10.56688209 US cups.
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)
US Cup (cup)
One sixteenth of a US gallon, 236.588 mL (8 US fluid ounces). The standard US recipe cup.
Cups began as household drinking vessels, not scientific units, which is why they remain the messiest measures in the kitchen. The US customary cup was defined by slicing up the gallon: half a pint, or eight US fluid ounces, about 236.6 milliliters. Unlike the larger units, nobody ever fixed it to a physical vessel, so it exists only as a fraction of the gallon.
The customary cup is not the only American cup. For nutrition labels, US regulation defines a cup as exactly 240 milliliters, a rounder figure that sits slightly above the customary size. Packaged foods therefore list a serving in the legal cup while a measuring cup from the hardware store follows the customary definition. The gap is 3.4 milliliters, which hardly matters for soup but can matter in baking. Cup measures also hide the weight of dry ingredients, since a cup of sifted flour and a cup of packed flour differ substantially, which is why much of the world prefers grams.
1 US cup = 0.2365882365 liters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Cup (unit); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures
Related conversions
- US cups to metric cups (reverse)
- Metric cups to liters
- Metric cups to milliliters
- Metric cups to US gallons
- Metric cups to US fluid ounces
- Metric cups to cubic meters
- 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 US cups
- Milliliters to US cups
- US gallons to US cups
- US fluid ounces to US cups
- Cubic meters to US cups
- Cubic centimeters to US cups
- US quarts to US cups
- US pints to US cups
- US tablespoons to US cups
- US teaspoons to US cups
- Metric tablespoons to US cups
- Metric teaspoons to US cups
See all volume units.