Pounds to Hundredweight (US) (lb to cwt (US))

1 pound equals 0.01 hundredweight (US) exactly.

1 pound = 0.01 hundredweight (US)

How to convert pounds to hundredweight (US)

To convert pounds to hundredweight (US), multiply the number of pounds by 0.01. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply hundredweight (US) by 100.

hundredweight (US) = pounds × 0.01

Example: 10 pounds = 0.1 hundredweight (US).

About these units

Pound (lb)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

Exactly 0.45359237 kg, divided into 16 ounces. The standard unit of weight in the US and common in the UK.

Why is pound abbreviated lb? The answer is Roman. The English word comes from the Latin libra pondo, roughly the weight measured in libra, and the symbol keeps the first word. The Roman libra was divided into 12 unciae. The avoirdupois pound of 16 ounces came into general use around 1300 and was initially equal to 6,992 troy grains; under Elizabeth I it was redefined as 7,000 grains. The UK's Weights and Measures Act 1878 set the imperial standard pound as a platinum cylinder, and the troy pound was abolished for trade the following year.

Today the pound is defined from the kilogram. The International Yard and Pound Agreement of 1959 fixed it at exactly 0.45359237 kg, and the UK's Weights and Measures Act 1963 wrote the same figure into law. Pounds remain the everyday unit for body weight, groceries and shipping in the United States and are widely used in the UK. The word also survives in odd places: a six-pounder cannon was named for the weight of its shot, not its own.

1 pound = 0.45359237 kilograms (exactly).

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

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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