Kilograms to Hundredweight (US) (kg to cwt (US))

1 kilogram equals 0.02204622622 hundredweight (US) (rounded).

1 kilogram = 0.02204622622 hundredweight (US)

How to convert kilograms to hundredweight (US)

To convert kilograms to hundredweight (US), multiply the number of kilograms by 0.02204622622. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply hundredweight (US) by 45.359237.

hundredweight (US) = kilograms × 0.02204622622

Example: 10 kilograms = 0.2204622622 hundredweight (US).

About these units

Kilogram (kg)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI base unit of mass. Since 2019 it is defined by fixing the value of the Planck constant, replacing the old platinum-iridium cylinder in Paris.

Oddly for a base unit, the kilogram began life as a derived one. In 1793 revolutionary France defined the grave as the mass of one litre of water, and a decree of 1795 then replaced it with the kilogramme, a name built from the Greek khilioi (a thousand) and gramma, a Late Latin word for a small weight. In 1799 a platinum cylinder, the Kilogramme des Archives, became the physical standard, matching a cubic decimetre of water at its densest, around 4 degrees Celsius. In 1889 the metric community adopted a platinum-iridium cylinder made in 1879, the International Prototype of the Kilogram, nicknamed Le Grand K.

The kilogram is still the only SI base unit with a prefix in its name. Because SI forbids stacked prefixes, a millionth of a kilogram is a milligram rather than a microkilogram, so every mass prefix is attached to the gram. Calibrating every national standard against one object in a vault near Paris meant that all of them drifted relative to it, so in November 2018 member states voted to tie the kilogram to a fixed value of the Planck constant. The change took effect on 20 May 2019. Day to day nothing shifted, but the definition no longer depends on a single piece of metal.

The kilogram is the reference unit for weight & mass on this site.

Sources: NIST: Kilogram introduction (SI redefinition); Wikipedia: Kilogram

Hundredweight (US) (cwt (US))

US customaryTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

100 pounds (45.36 kg), also called the short hundredweight or cental.

Hundredweight is a half-translated Latin idea: centum means one hundred, and medieval English merchants spoke of a centum weight or quintal. Around 1300 several different hundreds were in use as weights. The British version was fixed at 8 stone, or 112 pounds (50.80 kg), by the Weights and Measures Act 1835, so that 20 of them made a long ton of 2,240 pounds. The United States and Canada instead adopted a plain 100 pounds, the figure of 45.36 kg used here.

That round American hundredweight is also called the short hundredweight, and 20 of them make the 2,000-pound short ton. Britain's 1824 act had barred a 100-pound measure because of fraud concerns, but in 1879 it was legalised there as the cental, after merchants importing American wheat and tobacco pressed for it. In the US the unit survives in livestock sales, some grains and oilseeds, paper and certain futures contracts. NIST lists it as 100 lb, about 45.359 kg.

1 hundredweight (US) = 45.359237 kilograms (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Hundredweight; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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