Metric Cups to US Tablespoons (cup to tbsp)
1 metric cup equals 16.90701135 US tablespoons (rounded).
How to convert metric cups to US tablespoons
To convert metric cups to US tablespoons, multiply the number of metric cups by 16.90701135. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply US tablespoons by 0.05914705913 (rounded).
US tablespoons = metric cups × 16.90701135
Example: 10 metric cups = 169.0701135 US tablespoons.
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 Tablespoon (tbsp)
Half a US fluid ounce (14.787 mL), equal to 3 teaspoons.
A tablespoon was once a spoon first and a unit second. Tablespoons entered place settings around 1700, first reserved for soup, and in the 18th century apothecaries used an unofficial tablespoon of four fluid drams, or half a fluid ounce. That is the origin of the modern US definition, which turns the spoon into precisely half a US fluid ounce.
The US tablespoon is therefore 14.7868 milliliters, equal to three US teaspoons, and sixteen of them make a US customary cup. It is often treated as 15 mL, and American nutrition labels define a tablespoon as exactly 15 mL, so the two figures sit within about 1.4 percent of each other. The regional difference that matters is Australia, which uses a larger 20 milliliter tablespoon, so a recipe asking for a tablespoon of oil or baking powder can go wrong when translated across the Pacific.
1 US tablespoon = 0.01478676478 liters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Tablespoon; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures
Related conversions
- US tablespoons 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 meters
- Metric cups to cubic centimeters
- Metric cups to US quarts
- Metric cups to US pints
- Metric cups to US teaspoons
- Metric cups to metric tablespoons
- Metric cups to metric teaspoons
- Liters to US tablespoons
- Milliliters to US tablespoons
- US gallons to US tablespoons
- US cups to US tablespoons
- US fluid ounces to US tablespoons
- Cubic meters to US tablespoons
- Cubic centimeters to US tablespoons
- US quarts to US tablespoons
- US pints to US tablespoons
- US teaspoons to US tablespoons
- Metric tablespoons to US tablespoons
- Metric teaspoons to US tablespoons
See all volume units.