Volume is the amount of 3D space something takes up. The two most common measurements of volume in terms of liquid are Litres and Millilitres. Thus, a litre is a unit of measuring volume under the metric system. litres are commonly written as L (in short), so “5 L” indicates “5 litres” (you can also use lowercase l). In addition, a litre is just a clump of millilitres that is put all together. In fact, one litre
Makes up 1000 millilitres i.e.: 1 litre = 1,000 millilitres.
Examples of Litres
Milk, cold drinks, juices, soda and other drinks and carbonated drinks are often sold in litres. This is to say, the jug contains exactly 2 litres of water in it.
Let’s check out the capacity that each metric unit holds. Below is the summation in a tabular form.
Metric Units and Fluid Volume Used in Measuring Volume
Metric Units |
Capacity Or Fluid Volume |
1 litre |
1000 millilitre |
10 millilitre |
1 centilitre |
10 centilitres |
1 decilitre |
10 decilitres |
1 litre |
1000 litres |
1 kilolitre |
1,000,000 litres |
1 megalitre |
1,000,000,000 litres |
1 gigalitre |
500 mL |
half a litre |
Measuring volume units are also expressed in short forms such as below:
Abbreviations Used in Measuring Volume
Metric Units |
Abbreviation |
litre |
L , l |
Millilitre |
mL |
Kilolitres |
kL |
Megalitres |
ML |
Gigalitres |
gL |
One Litre
Litres are often used for commodities or components (like the fluids and solids which can be poured) and are measured by the size or capacity of their container. On the other hand, cubic meters (and derived units) are commonly used for items measured either by their dimensions or their displacements. The litre is also used in some measurements, like the density (kg/L), enabling easy comparison with the density of water.
One Litre of Water
1 litre of water contains a mass of almost one kilogram since the kilogram was originally described as the mass of one cubic decimetre of water (10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm) at the temperature of melting ice (0 °C) in 1795. Followed up redefinitions of the metre and kilogram indicated that this relationship is no longer exact.
Solved Examples
Example1:
Alex bought a bottle of hand sanitiser. The bottle contains 4000 ml of liquid content.
Find out the volume of litres of the liquid does the sanitiser bottle contain?
Solution:
4000mL = 4000/1,000
=4 L
Therefore, the sanitiser bottle contains 4L
Example2:
Mr. Brown purchased 5 cans of pineapple juice of 1 L each. He drank 2500 mL of juice. Calculate the mL of juice still remaining in the cans?
Solution:
1 can=1
L5 cans=5
L= 5×2,500=12,500
mL=12,500 mL−2,500 mL =10,000
∴ 10,000 mL of juice is remaining.
Example3:
The volume of a kitchen pantry trash bin in a school is 70 litres. Find out the gallons of trash that the trash bin in the kitchen can hold?
Solution:
To find out: The volume of the trash bin in gallons.
Given: The given volume of the kitchen trash bin = 70 litres.
Applying the formula of litres to gallons,
gallons = 0.264172 * litres
gallons = 0.264172 * 70 = 18.49204
Hence, the volume of the given kitchen trash bin it can hold = 2.64172 gallons.
Fun Facts
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Litre was once used as a base unit under the original French metric system
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The term litre is extracted from a traditional French unit, the ‘litron’, whose name appeared from Byzantine Greek—where it was regarded as a unit of weight, not volume and equivalent to approximately 0.831 litres.
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The litre is accepted for use with the SI, not an SI unit—the SI unit of volume is the cubic metre (m3).
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The spelling “litre” is primarily used in American English.
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A litre is represented with an abbreviation L or l is measured as L3 which is used to measure liquids.
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A litre is a bit more than a quart in the measurement