Liters to Gallons

It depends on the gallon. A US gallon is exactly 3.785411784 litres. An imperial gallon is exactly 4.54609 litres — about 20% larger. Any converter or chart that gives one figure without naming the gallon is leaving out the fact that decides whether the answer is right.

13.21 US gallons (50 ÷ 3.785411784 = 13.2086), or 11.00 imperial gallons (50 ÷ 4.54609 = 10.9985). The 2.2-gallon gap between the two answers is why fuel-economy figures cross the Atlantic so badly: the same tank and the same driving produce different MPG numbers purely from the gallon's size.

History. The US kept the older English wine gallon of 231 cubic inches, which works out to exactly 3.785411784 litres. Britain redefined its gallon in 1824 as the volume of 10 lb of water, later fixed at exactly 4.54609 litres, and the two systems diverged. The US gallon is the default almost everywhere gallons are used today; the imperial gallon survives in some Canadian and older UK contexts.

It means exactly 1 US gallon of water-volume converts with no measurement error at all: 3.785411784 L = 1.0000 US gal. Approximations like 3.79 L per gallon are fine for a single tank (they give 13.19 gal for 50 L against the exact 13.21), but they compound across a fleet, a delivery schedule or a chemical mix, which is why this page divides by the defined figure.

Yes. Batch mode divides every pasted line by 3.785411784 and returns US gallons for each, which suits a set of tank capacities, container sizes or consumption records kept in litres that need gallon figures throughout.