Long Tons to Metric Tons (ton (UK) to t)

1 long ton equals 1.016046909 metric tons (rounded).

1 long ton = 1.016046909 metric tons

How to convert long tons to metric tons

To convert long tons to metric tons, multiply the number of long tons by 1.016046909. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply metric tons by 0.9842065276 (rounded).

metric tons = long tons × 1.016046909

Example: 10 long tons = 10.16046909 metric tons.

About these units

Long Ton (ton (UK))

Imperial (British)Current unit

2,240 pounds (1,016.05 kg), the imperial or UK ton. Also used for ship displacement.

Before the 15th century an English ton was 2,160 pounds, twenty hundredweight of 108 pounds. Nineteenth-century British definitions included 2,240, 2,352 and 2,400 pounds, though the legal ton was usually 2,240 lb, which is twenty hundredweight of 112 lb. Industry bent the rules: in the 17th and 18th century iron trade, workers were given a 2,240 lb ton of raw material but were expected to return a 2,400 lb ton of processed iron, allowing for waste, and some coal mines delivered long tons but paid miners for a shorter one, which the miners saw as unfair.

The long ton, about 1,016 kg, is within 2 percent of the metric tonne, which makes the two easy to mistake for each other. It is used in the UK, Ireland and most Commonwealth countries that followed the imperial system, although the tonne is now the legal trade unit in the UK, Canada and Australia. Ship displacement has traditionally been quoted in long tons, because a ship cannot be put on a scale and is instead measured by the weight of water it pushes aside. The 2,240 lb figure became the standard for ship design.

1 long ton = 1,016.046909 kilograms (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ton; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 (mass conversions)

Metric Ton (t)

Metric (SI)Current unit

1,000 kilograms (about 2,204.6 lb), also spelled tonne. Used for cargo, grain and vehicle weights outside the US.

Barrels gave the tonne its name. The word goes back to a Germanic root for a large cask, the tun, and a full tun could easily weigh around a tonne. In English this became ton; the spelling tonne has been used in France since 1842, where it replaced the older tonneau, and pre-metric French tonnes were 2,000 livres, about 979 kg. Once the metric system took hold, the tonne was fixed at 1,000 kilograms, which is the mass of roughly a cubic metre of water.

The unit is accepted for use with the SI, and its symbol is a lowercase t with no period. Because it sits close to the old English ton, the two get confused: the short ton used in the US is about 10 percent lighter than a tonne, while the long ton differs by less than 2 percent. NIST calls the unit the metric ton, and the spelling tonne is rare in the US. Very large quantities are stated in prefixed forms such as the megatonne, which equals a teragram. In explosives, a tonne of TNT is taken as about 4.2 gigajoules.

1 metric ton = 1,000 kilograms (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Tonne; Wikipedia: Ton; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 (mass conversions)

Related conversions

See all weight & mass units.