Miles to Kilometres
Convert miles to kilometres, the direction with no easy mental shortcut.
This runs on your own device. Nothing you enter leaves the page.
Going the other way is the harder direction to estimate. Multiplying by 1.609344 has no clean mental shortcut the way five eighths does, and the usual approximations drift: adding half again gives 1.5 rather than 1.61, which is out by 7%.
More about Miles to Kilometres
This direction comes up most when reading American material from anywhere else. A car listed at 30 miles per gallon, a house described as two miles from the station, a hiking trail signposted in miles on a map printed in kilometres. The number is authoritative in its own system and useless in yours until it is converted.
Fuel economy is the trap worth naming. Miles per gallon and litres per 100 km are not just different units, they are inverted: a bigger mpg figure is better while a bigger L/100 km figure is worse, so converting one to the other means dividing rather than multiplying. Converting the distance alone, as this page does, gives you the miles-to-kilometres half of that job.
Markers worth keeping: a mile is 1.61 km, five miles is 8.05, ten miles is 16.09, and a marathon at 26.2 miles is 42.2 km. A 60 mph limit is 97 km/h, and 70 mph is 113.
- Exact factor in the reverse direction, 1.609344 kilometres to the mile
- Swap button to flip back without retyping the number
- Every other length unit listed underneath, ready to copy
- Common US speed limits converted in the text
- Numbers grouped the way your language writes them
How to use it
- 1Type the number of miles you have.
- 2Read the answer in kilometres as it updates.
- 3Swap the direction if you want kilometres to miles instead.
- 4Take metres, yards or any other length from the table below.
Questions
How many kilometres is 1 mile?
1.609344 km exactly. Five miles is 8.05 km and ten miles is 16.09 km.
Is there a mental shortcut for this direction?
Add about 60%: take the miles, add half again, then a tenth more. Adding only half is out by 7%, which is a kilometre over ten miles.
How long is a marathon in kilometres?
The 26.2 mile distance is 42.2 km, which is where the familiar 42.195 km figure comes from.
What is 70 mph in km/h?
113 km/h. A 60 mph limit is 97 km/h and 55 mph is 89 km/h.
Can I convert miles per gallon this way?
Not directly, because mpg and litres per 100 km are inverted as well as rescaled. This page converts the distance; the fuel figure needs a division, not a multiplication.