US Cups to Shō (cup to shō)
1 US cup equals 0.1311532456 shō (rounded).
How to convert US cups to shō
To convert US cups to shō, multiply the number of US cups by 0.1311532456. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply shō by 7.624668342 (rounded).
shō = US cups × 0.1311532456
Example: 10 US cups = 1.311532456 shō.
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
Shō (shō)
Exactly 2401/1331 liters, about 1.8039 L. Sake bottles still come in 1.8 L 'isshō-bin' sizes.
The character for shō depicts a ladle holding grain, and the measure began as roughly the amount held in two cupped hands, about 200 mL. Over the centuries the unit grew to about ten times that, and by the Edo period the standard box (masu) was the one used in Kyoto.
In 1669 the shogunate abolished the older Edo masu and ordered the slightly larger new Kyoto masu to be used everywhere. Guilds in Edo and Kyoto policed its size for roughly three centuries. The 1891 Weights and Measures Act then fixed the shō at 2401/1331 L, about 1.804 L, derived from the 64,827 cubic bu of that box.
Japanese sake is still sold in 1.8 L bottles known as isshō-bin, or one-shō bottles. Trade use of the shō was banned in 1959. Note that in China the shō is defined as exactly one litre, so the same word names a different size there.
1 shō = 1.803906837 liters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement; Japanese Wikipedia: Sho
Related conversions
- Shō 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 shō
- Milliliters to shō
- US gallons to shō
- US fluid ounces to shō
See all volume units.