How many meters are in a kilometer?
Exactly 1,000. Multiply kilometers by 1,000 to get meters: 2.5 km is 2,500 m and 0.3 km is 300 m.
- 1 km
- 1,000 m
- 1 m
- 0.001 km
- 1 mile
- 1,609.344 m
Kilometers to meters table
| Kilometers (km) | Meters (m) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,000 |
| 2 | 2,000 |
| 3 | 3,000 |
| 4 | 4,000 |
| 5 | 5,000 |
| 6 | 6,000 |
| 7 | 7,000 |
| 8 | 8,000 |
| 9 | 9,000 |
| 10 | 10,000 |
| Kilometers (km) | Meters (m) |
|---|---|
| 12 | 12,000 |
| 15 | 15,000 |
| 20 | 20,000 |
| 25 | 25,000 |
| 30 | 30,000 |
| 40 | 40,000 |
| 50 | 50,000 |
| 60 | 60,000 |
| 75 | 75,000 |
| 100 | 100,000 |
Race and track distances
- 5,000 m5K road race
- 10,000 m10K road race
- 21,097.5 mHalf marathon
- 42,195 mMarathon
Track events are named in meters and road races in kilometers, but they sit on the same scale. A 1,500 m race is 1.5 km, and a standard outdoor track lap is 400 m, so 10 km is 25 laps. The marathon is 42.195 km, which is 42,195 m.
Swimming uses meters as well: the 1,500 m freestyle, the longest Olympic pool race, is 1.5 km.
The kilo prefix
Kilo means one thousand in every SI unit, so the same move works for kilograms, kilowatts and kilojoules. The BIPM SI Brochure defines the prefixes, and the meter itself is set by the speed of light: it is the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
For distances people drive, the km to miles converter is usually the next step; for the reverse of this page, see m to km.
Navigation apps switch between the two on their own, showing meters for the final turn and kilometers for the rest of the route. Road engineering documents often keep everything in meters, so a point 12.5 km along a road is written as chainage 12+500, the kilometer and meter parts side by side.
Km to m questions
How many meters is 0.5 km?
0.5 × 1,000 = 500 m.
How many meters are in 3.2 km?
3.2 × 1,000 = 3,200 m.
How many laps of a 400 m track is 5 km?
5,000 ÷ 400 = 12.5 laps.
Is a kilometer longer than a mile?
No. A mile is 1.609344 km, so a kilometer is only about 0.62 of a mile.