Milliliters to Metric Cups (mL to cup)

1 milliliter equals 0.004 metric cups exactly.

1 milliliter = 0.004 metric cups

How to convert milliliters to metric cups

To convert milliliters to metric cups, multiply the number of milliliters by 0.004. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply metric cups by 250.

metric cups = milliliters × 0.004

Example: 10 milliliters = 0.04 metric 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

Milliliter (mL)

Metric (SI)Current unit

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

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.

1 milliliter = 0.001 liters (exactly).

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

Metric Cup (cup)

Cooking & barCurrent unit

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)

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