US Cups to Cubic Inches (cup to in³)
1 US cup equals 14.4375 cubic inches exactly.
How to convert US cups to cubic inches
To convert US cups to cubic inches, multiply the number of US cups by 14.4375. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply cubic inches by 0.06926406926 (rounded).
cubic inches = US cups × 14.4375
Example: 10 US cups = 144.375 cubic inches.
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
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
Cubic Inch (in³)
Exactly 16.387064 mL. Used for engine displacement in the US and for small mechanical parts.
Cubic inch is a unit defined by a ruler. Take an inch, build a cube, and its volume is exactly 16.387064 milliliters under the modern definition of the inch as 25.4 millimeters. Its main role in history is as the building block behind other US volumes: the US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, so a cubic inch is exactly 1/231 of a gallon. Even the 42-gallon oil barrel works out to precisely 9,702 of them.
The cubic inch survives most visibly in American engines, which are abbreviated c.i.d. for cubic inch displacement, while the rest of the world and many modern automakers speak in liters. A 5.7 liter engine is about 350 cubic inches, a conversion made easy by the exact factor of 16.387064. Small mechanical parts are also sized in cubic inches in North America.
1 cubic inch = 0.016387064 liters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Cubic inch; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume
Related conversions
- Cubic inches to US cups (reverse)
- US cups to liters
- US cups to milliliters
- US cups to US gallons
- US cups to US fluid ounces
- US cups to cubic meters
- US cups to cubic centimeters
- US cups to US quarts
- US cups to US pints
- US cups to US tablespoons
- US cups to US teaspoons
- US cups to metric cups
- US cups to metric tablespoons
- Liters to cubic inches
- Milliliters to cubic inches
- US gallons to cubic inches
- US fluid ounces to cubic inches
- Cubic meters to cubic inches
- Cubic centimeters to cubic inches
- US quarts to cubic inches
- US pints to cubic inches
- US tablespoons to cubic inches
- US teaspoons to cubic inches
- Metric cups to cubic inches
- Metric tablespoons to cubic inches
See all volume units.