Short Tons to Pounds (ton (US) to lb)

1 short ton equals 2,000 pounds exactly.

1 short ton = 2,000 pounds

How to convert short tons to pounds

To convert short tons to pounds, multiply the number of short tons by 2,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply pounds by 0.0005.

pounds = short tons × 2,000

Example: 10 short tons = 20,000 pounds.

About these units

Short Ton (ton (US))

US customaryCurrent unit

2,000 pounds (907.18 kg). The ton used in the United States.

Wine casks lie behind every kind of ton. The word comes from tun, the term for the largest cask, and a tun of wine held roughly 2,000 pounds and took up about 60 cubic feet of cargo space. The short ton of 2,000 pounds keeps that round figure. It is used mainly in the United States and in some Canadian industries, while most of the world uses the tonne or, in the Commonwealth, the long ton.

The short ton is about 907 kg, roughly 10 percent less than a metric tonne, so the two should never be swapped when reading a statistic. The long and metric tons, by contrast, differ from each other by less than 2 percent. Weighing cargo on land is easy, but ships are traditionally described by displacement in long tons, so American shipping and naval documents can contain both kinds of ton at once. A freight bill may also use a measurement ton, which is a volume of 40 cubic feet. When writing for an international audience, spelling out short ton avoids confusion.

1 short ton = 907.18474 kilograms (exactly).

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

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)

Related conversions

See all weight & mass units.