Milliliter (mL)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a liter, or exactly 1 cubic centimeter. Used for medicine, cooking and small containers.

1 milliliter = 0.001 liters (exactly).

About the milliliter

Milliliters inherit everything from the liter, since the prefix simply means one thousandth. Because the liter is a cubic decimeter, a milliliter works out to exactly one cubic centimeter, a coincidence the metric system built in on purpose so that volume, length and mass interlock. One milliliter of water has a mass of about one gram, so a dosing syringe, a kitchen scale and a measuring jug can all be checked against one another.

Today milliliters dominate wherever small amounts must be measured precisely: medicine, flavorings, perfume, shampoo and the fine print on drink labels. Spelling is a mild regional split, with uppercase mL preferred in the United States, Canada and Australia and lowercase ml common in the UK and Europe. For scale, a US teaspoon is just under 5 mL, a US tablespoon is about 14.8 mL, and the US nutrition-label cup is exactly 240 mL, so one such cup is 240 of these tiny units.

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures

Milliliter conversion chart

1 milliliter expressed in every other volume unit:

More Metric (SI) units

• liter (volume)
• cubic meter (volume)
• cubic centimeter (volume)
• cubic millimeter (volume)
• microliter (volume)
• centiliter (volume)
• deciliter (volume)
• hectoliter (volume)
• meter (length)
• kilometer (length)
• centimeter (length)
• millimeter (length)
• micrometer (length)
• nanometer (length)
• picometer (length)
• decimeter (length)

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