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Everything you need to know about measuring milliliters in a cup, from terms and origin to mL in a cup and other helpful measurements.
Let’s talk about everything you need to know about measuring and converting metric milliliters to cups. We will look at some important milliliter conversions, the history of both metric volume measurements (and the recent history of the cup which is unique in that it post-dates the metric system!)
How Many mL In A Cup?
There are 237 milliliters in a cup.
The United States is one of only three nations that still use the imperial system of measurement. The other two are Myanmar and Liberia.
The rest of the world long ago went to the decimal based metric system (how is imperial different form metric?), so if you use any international recipe it is apt to be measured in grams and milliliters. Being able to easily convert between cups and the metric used internationally is essential to using international recipes.
What Is a Cup?
1 cup is 8 ounces. There are 16 cups in a gallon, 8 cups in a half-gallon, 4 cups in a quart, and 2 cups in a pint. The cup is a unit of volume measurement (whereas ounces measure weight).
Unlike much of our measuring system, which comes from Rome, the cup came much later to American food and beverage measurements. The cup was initiated by Fannie Farmer, the director of the Boston Cooking School in 1896, and first appeared in her book “The Boston Cooking School Cookbook”.
Before Fannie initiated this change many recipes used terms like a handful of rice or a generous portion of flour. We all know people who can successfully cook this way today. They just pour in ingredients and their cooking comes out perfectly. For the rest of us, however, Fannie Farmer’s standardization was a great service.
What Is a Milliliter?
There are 1000 milliliters in 1 liter. The milliliter is a metric unit of volume (whereas grams measure weight).
The liter was introduced in France in 1795 by the revolutionary government after overthrowing the monarchy and everything associated with it, and so the world in time got the metric system. The metric system, however, didn’t become standard immediately. It took a while for nations to agree upon the standard lengths, weights, and volumes that became today’s metric system. In 1901 an international agreement defined the liter as the volume of 1 kg of pure water. A milliliter was then defined as 1/1,000th of a liter or the volume of one gram of pure water.
Quick conversions
Because we’re converting between two systems of measurement, figuring out how many mL in a cup isn’t a nice round number. So we’ve included charts to help you convert between the two measurements!
Milliliters to Cups
Use this chart for converting from a recipe written in metric measurements to cups or fluid ounces.
| Metric | Fluid Ounces | Cups |
| 50 ml | 1.69 | 0.211 |
| 100 ml | 3.38 | 0.42 |
| 200 ml | 6.76 | 0.85 |
| 333 ml | 11.3 | 1.41 |
| 500 ml | 16.9 | 2.11 |
| 1 liter | 33.8 | 4.2 |
| 1.5 liters | 50.7 | 6.3 |
| 2 liters | 67.6 | 8.5 |
| 5 liters | 169 | 21.1 |
| 10 liters | 338 | 42.3 |
Cups to Milliliters
Use this chart if you have an imperial measurement – like a cup, pint, or quart – and want to convert it to a metric milliliter or liter.
| Imperial | Milliliters | Liters |
| 1/4 cup | 59 | 0.06 |
| 1/2 cup | 118 | 0.12 |
| 1 cup | 237 | 0.24 |
| 2 cups (1 pint) | 473 | 0.47 |
| 4 cups (1 quart) | 946 | 0.95 |
| 8 cups (1/2 gallon) | 1892 | 1.89 |
| 16 cups (1 gallon) | 3785 | 3.78 |
So to wrap up, how many milliliters are in a cup? The answer is 237 mL or 0.237 liters.
