Kilometre

"km" redirects here. For other uses, see KM.

A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer; symbol: km) is a unit of length that is equal to 1,000 metres, the current International System of Units (SI) base unit of length. The kilometre is part of a metric system. A corresponding unit of area is the square kilometre and a corresponding unit of volume is the cubic kilometre.

Slang terms for kilometre include "klick" (sometimes spelt "click" or "klik") and "kay" (or "k"). These non-standard terms can also refer to kilometres per hour.

In English, the word "kilometre" is often pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, unlike other SI units (such as kilogram) where the stress is placed on the first syllable.

hectometre << kilometre << megametre

Equivalence to other units of length

1 kilometre is equal to:

1,000 metres (1 metre is equal to 0.001 kilometres)
about 0.621 statute miles (1 statute mile is equal to about 1.609 kilometres)
about 1,094 international yards (1 international yard is equal to about 0.000914 kilometres)
about 3,281 feet (1 foot is equal to about 0.000305 kilometres)

Unicode symbols

For the purposes of compatibility with Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) characters, Unicode has symbols for:

kilometre (㎞) - code 339E
square kilometre (㎢) - code 33A2
cubic kilometre (㎦) - code 33A6

They are useful only with East Asian fixed-width CJK fonts, because they are equal in size to one Chinese character.

Kilometre

Equivalence to other units of length

Unicode symbols

See also