Convert between all metric volume units — mL, cL, dL, L, daL, hL, kL, cc, and cubic meters. Prefix scale table, bar chart, and everyday examples.
This page converts between the main metric volume units, from milliliters up through liters, kiloliters, cubic centimeters, and cubic meters. Because the metric system is built on powers of ten, the math is simple, but it is still useful to have the full ladder visible when you are jumping across several prefixes at once. It is especially useful when the same number appears in a lab sheet, a water bill, or a product spec and you need the larger or smaller prefix immediately.
It is especially handy when one source uses smaller units like mL or cc and another uses larger units like liters, cubic meters, or kiloliters. Students, lab users, cooks, and utility or tank-volume readers all run into that mismatch. Seeing the whole scale in one place makes the decimal shifts easier to trust.
Use it when the problem stays entirely inside the metric system but needs a fast, clean conversion across more than one prefix level.
Metric conversions are straightforward in theory, but uncommon units like daL, hL, kL, or m³ are easy to misread in practice. This page keeps the entire volume scale visible so you can compare units without doing repeated decimal shifts by hand. It is especially useful when the same number appears in a lab sheet, a water bill, or a product spec and you need the larger or smaller prefix immediately.
1 L = 1,000 mL = 100 cL = 10 dL 1 kL = 1,000 L = 1 m³ 1 hL = 100 L | 1 daL = 10 L
Result: 0.5 L = 500 mL = 50 cL
5 dL × 100 mL/dL = 500 mL = 0.5 L = 50 cL. That's about the volume of a standard water bottle.
Metric prefixes follow a consistent pattern: milli (10⁻³), centi (10⁻²), deci (10⁻¹), base (10⁰), deca (10¹), hecto (10²), kilo (10³). For volume, the base unit is the liter. This means 1 kiloliter = 10³ liters = 10⁶ milliliters. The system is so regular that you can convert by simply shifting the decimal.
Decaliters (10 L) are rarely used in everyday life but appear in agricultural chemistry (herbicide application rates). Hectoliters (100 L) are the standard unit for brewery production totals. Kiloliters (1,000 L) = cubic meters and are used in water utility billing worldwide.
Lab work predominantly uses milliliters (mL) and liters (L). Micropipettes measure in microliters (μL, 10⁻⁶ L). While this converter covers the standard SI prefixes for everyday use, scientific work extends into micro-, nano-, and pico-liters for precision applications.
1,000 mL = 1 liter. That is the main checkpoint for the whole metric volume ladder.
100 liters. Used in the beverage industry (1 barrel of beer ≈ 1.17 hL). It is a common production unit even though it is less familiar to most consumers.
1,000 liters = 1 cubic meter = 264.2 US gallons. Often used in water utility billing.
Yes. 1 cubic centimeter = 1 milliliter exactly.
It was designed around powers of ten so unit changes could be handled by shifting the decimal point rather than memorizing many unrelated factors. That design is why this converter can show the whole ladder so cleanly.
1 L = 33.814 fl oz, 4.227 cups, or 0.2642 gallons. Use our Imperial ↔ Metric converter for detailed results.