Whether you’re reading a foreign road sign, a recipe, or a running app set to the wrong unit, distance conversion comes up more often than you’d expect.
The core conversions
- 1 kilometre = 0.6214 miles
- 1 mile = 1.6093 kilometres
- 1 metre = 3.2808 feet
- 1 foot = 0.3048 metres
Quick mental estimate
For a rough km-to-miles estimate without a calculator, multiply kilometres by 0.6 — 100 km is roughly 60 miles. For a rough miles-to-km estimate, multiply miles by 1.6 — 50 miles is roughly 80 km.
Where this trips people up
Speed limits, running-race distances (a marathon is 42.195 km, or 26.2 miles) and car mileage figures are common places where km and miles get mixed up, especially when comparing a US source to an Indian, European or UK one.
For an exact figure every time, use the free Unit Converter — covers metres, kilometres, miles and feet.