What is centimeters to km?

Answer 1

Here are the necessary conversions:

1 km = 1000 m

1 m = 100 cm

When using conversions like these, you need to make sure that the units you start with get canceled out, so the units you started with need to be in the denominator (bottom of the fraction) in your conversion factor.

So we have the conversion factors*:

1 = 1000 m/km

1 = 100 cm/m

Notice that these conversion factors equal 1. So when we multiply what we were given by a conversion factor, we aren't changing the value, just the units.

1 km = 1 km * (1000 m/km) = 1000 m

and 1000 m = 1000 m * (100 cm/m) = 1000 * 100 cm = 100,000 cm

so,

1 km = 100,000 cm = 105 cm

---- * NOTE: Using conversion factors in this problem was pretty straightforward but what if your conversion didn't have a 1 on one side? Or, what if you were converting in the other direction?

EX: 55 mi = 88 km (which I remember from speed limit signs in Canada)

If we divide both sides by 11, we get: 5 mi = 8 km

There 2 sets of conversion factors, depending on what units you're given:

If given mi: 1 = 8 km / 5 mi = 8/5 km/mi

If given km: 1 = 5 mi / 8 km = 5/8 mi/km

So now we can solve both types of questions:

How many kilometers in 15 miles?

15 mi = 15 mi * (8 km / 5 mi) = 3 * 8 km = 24 km

How many miles in 16 kilometers?

16 km = 16 km * (5 mi / 8 km) = 2 * 5 mi = 10 mi

I always found metric conversions to be troublesome. However, I used to teach school and used a couple of good websites to help me practice and learn some math skills that I was not very good at. Math.com is a great website that gives you sample problems and answers to practice skills ranging from elementary to high school level. I am making the basic assumption that you are working on many math problems using metrics and have more questions that are similar to this one. Good luck!