How Many Liters Are In A Gallon?

Need to know how many liters are in a gallon? Here’s everything you need to know about converting liters to gallons (and other helpful measurements)!

How many liters are in a gallon?

There are 3.785 liters in a gallon and a liter is 0.264 of a gallon.

For many purposes you can just treat liters as quarts and use the imperial 4 quarts to a gallon. If, however, you are brewing kombucha or beer, then precision and the correct factors are more important.

What is a Liter?

The liter was introduced in France in 1795 by the Republican government after overthrowing the monarchy and all trappings associated with that government, and so began the metric system. In 1901 international agreement was reached to redefined the liter as the space occupied by 1 kg of pure water.

What Is A Gallon?

The term gallon comes from the Roman word Galleta or Galletum meaning wine jug. There is some evidence that the origin may predate Latin and comes from the Celtic people. The word may also have come from the Gaulish (Gaul covered most of modern day France) word Galla meaning “vessel”. Guess everybody likes their wine in large containers. 

In U.S. measurements, a gallon is 3.785 liters, 128 fluid ounces, 4 quarts, 8 pints, or 16 cups. A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.

Today gallons are rarely used in recipes outside of perhaps ice teas, home brew, and wine making. Specialized containers for home brew are often marked in gallon increments, but this quick conversion chart is handy for converting smaller amounts into gallons.

Quick Conversions

So while the rest of the world has moved on to the metric system, the U.S. still use our pints, quarts, and gallons, so here is a quick conversion chart to assist in metric conversions.

• 1 cup = 0.236 liters
• 1 pint = 0.47 liters
• 1 quart = 1.06 liters
• 1 gallon = 3.78 liters

Liters	Cups	Pints	Quarts	Gallons
0.5	2.12	1.06	0.53	0.13
1	4.23	2.11	1.06	0.26
2	8.46	4.22	2.12	0.53
5	21.15	10.55	5.30	1.32
10	42.30	21.10	10.60	2.64