Cups to Liters
Convert cups (cup) to liters (L). Both measure capacity and volume, and the conversion comes up in cooking, chemistry, fuel work.
The Formula
``
liters = cups × 0.2365882365
cups = liters × 4.22675283773
`
One cup is 0.236588 liters, and one liter is 4.2268 cups.
Conversion Table
| Cups | Liters |
|---|---|
| 1 cup | 0.236588 L |
| 2 cup | 0.473176 L |
| 5 cup | 1.1829 L |
| 10 cup | 2.3659 L |
| 25 cup | 5.9147 L |
| 50 cup | 11.8294 L |
| 100 cup | 23.6588 L |
| 500 cup | 118.2941 L |
| 1,000 cup | 236.5882 L |
The Other Direction
| Liters | Cups |
|---|---|
| 1 L | 4.2268 cup |
| 2 L | 8.4535 cup |
| 5 L | 21.1338 cup |
| 10 L | 42.2675 cup |
| 25 L | 105.6688 cup |
| 50 L | 211.3376 cup |
| 100 L | 422.6753 cup |
| 500 L | 2,113.38 cup |
| 1,000 L | 4,226.75 cup |
What Each Unit Is
Cups (cup) — the US customary cup: exactly 240 millilitres in nutrition labelling, 236.588 mL legally. An American cooking measure standardised by Fannie Farmer in the 1890s.
Liters (L) — exactly one cubic decimetre, or 0.001 cubic metres. A metric volume defined for trade; briefly redefined against the kilogram before reverting in 1964.
A Sense of Scale
A coffee mug holds about 1.5 cups- US recipes measure everything in cups
- A large drink bottle is 2 L
- A car fuel tank is 45–60 L
- A bath holds about 80 L
Doing It in Your Head
Multiply by 4, then divide by 17. That is off by 0.55% — close enough to judge a
distance, a weight or a price, and not close enough to sign off on a drawing.
Exact Mental shortcut 2.3659 L 2.3529 L 23.6588 L 23.5294 L
Precision
The factor 0.2365882365 is rounded. For engineering work carry more digits than the table above, and round only at the end — rounding at each step compounds.
Watch Out For
- A US cup is 237 mL, a metric cup 250 mL and a Japanese cup 200 mL. Baking by volume is why the same recipe fails in another country.
In Code
`javascript
const cupToLiter = (value) => value * 0.2365882365;
``
Where This Conversion Comes Up
- Cooking
- Chemistry
- Fuel
- Beverages
- Medicine
How Many Decimals Do You Need?
Rounding the factor costs accuracy, and how much depends on the factor. Converting 137 cup with the factor truncated at each decimal place:
| Decimals kept | Factor | 137 cup becomes | Error |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 100.0000% |
| 1 | 0.2 | 27.4 | 15.4649% |
| 2 | 0.24 | 32.88 | 1.4421% |
| 3 | 0.237 | 32.469 | 0.1740% |
| 4 | 0.2366 | 32.4142 | 0.0050% |
The right number of significant figures is set by your input, not by the converter. If you measured cups to three significant figures, the answer in liters is only good to three — writing more digits claims precision the measurement never had.