Milligrams to Ounces (mg to oz)
1 milligram equals 0.00003527396195 ounces (rounded).
How to convert milligrams to ounces
To convert milligrams to ounces, multiply the number of milligrams by 0.00003527396195. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply ounces by 28,349.52313 (rounded).
ounces = milligrams × 0.00003527396195
Example: 10 milligrams = 0.0003527396195 ounces.
About these units
Milligram (mg)
One thousandth of a gram. Used for medicine doses and vitamins.
No single inventor can be credited with the milligram. It arrived with the metric system that France introduced in the 1790s, where the gram was the basic unit of mass and thousandths of it were named with a prefix. When the International System of Units was later built around the kilogram, the rule against stacked prefixes meant that a millionth of a kilogram is written 1 mg, never a microkilogram, so the milligram remained a gram-based unit even though the gram itself is not the SI base.
A milligram is small enough that doses of medicine and vitamins are measured in it routinely. A US penny weighs about 2.5 g, so a milligram is roughly one 2,500th of a coin. The unit is also at the center of a well-known safety problem: milligram and microgram differ by a factor of 1,000, and the abbreviation mcg for micrograms is used on prescriptions precisely so that a handwritten micro sign cannot be misread as milli. Confusing the two has caused serious medication errors.
1 milligram = 0.000001 kilograms (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Milligram; Wikipedia: Microgram; Wikipedia: Gram
Ounce (oz)
One sixteenth of a pound, exactly 28.349523125 g. Used for food, mail and consumer goods in the US and UK.
A twelfth part is what ounce originally meant. It comes from the Roman uncia, one twelfth of the Roman pound, a word that also gave English the inch. The abbreviation oz does not come from English at all but from the Italian onza or oncia. Over the centuries many regions and trades used different ounces: the English Tower ounce of 29.16 g was abolished by Henry VIII in 1527, and the Dutch ons was redefined as exactly 100 g in 1820.
The avoirdupois ounce used for everyday goods is one sixteenth of a pound, exactly 28.349523125 g or 437.5 grains, the standard in the US and under the UK imperial system. It is not the same as the troy ounce for precious metals, and neither is the fluid ounce, which measures volume. Ounces still describe portions such as steaks and burgers, and they show up in unexpected places: fabric is graded by weight per area, so a 16 oz denim is a heavy cloth, and the copper on a circuit board is specified in ounces, where 1 oz is roughly 34.7 micrometres thick.
1 ounce = 0.02834952313 kilograms (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Ounce; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 (mass conversions)
Related conversions
- Ounces to milligrams (reverse)
- Milligrams to kilograms
- Milligrams to grams
- Milligrams to metric tons
- Milligrams to pounds
- Milligrams to micrograms
- Milligrams to carats
- Milligrams to stone
- Milligrams to short tons
- Milligrams to long tons
- Milligrams to troy ounces
- Kilograms to ounces
- Grams to ounces
- Metric tons to ounces
- Pounds to ounces
- Micrograms to ounces
- Carats to ounces
- Stone to ounces
- Short tons to ounces
- Long tons to ounces
- Troy ounces to ounces
- Daltons to ounces
- Earth masses to ounces
See all weight & mass units.