Miles to kilometres
Convert miles to kilometres and metres with the exact 1.609344 conversion factor.
A different unit, the same stretch of road
One mile is longer than one kilometre: exactly 1.609344 km. Think of choosing a longer ruler. You need fewer of those rulers to measure the same road.
Work through a 10-unit example
Use multiplication for the shorter unit
10 × 1.609344 = 16.09344 km
Ten miles needs more than ten kilometre units. The larger number still describes the same length.
Keep only useful decimal places
For a quick explanation, say about 16.09 km. More decimal places do not improve an estimated route measurement.
1,609.344 m
Formula used
Kilometres = miles × 1.609344. The metres result is the kilometre result multiplied by 1,000.
Work through a few examples
- 1 mi
- ≈ 1.609344 km
- 3.1 mi
- ≈ 4.988966 km
- 6.2 mi
- ≈ 9.977933 km
- 26.2 mi
- ≈ 42.164813 km
The conversion factor is exact; displayed results round to six decimal places. Use the original input when converting back to avoid an extra rounding error.
Kilometres, metres and miles
A kilometre is exactly 1,000 metres. Here mi means the international mile, exactly 1,609.344 metres, not the nautical mile used at sea and in aviation. Changing the unit leaves the physical length unchanged.
NIST — Exact international mile conversion
Put the converted distance in context
A kilometre at neighbourhood scale · Walking and running a 5K · Ten-kilometre comparisons · The exact marathon distance