kiloliters

A kiloliter, abbreviated kL, is a metric unit of volume equal to 1,000 liters. It is derived from the liter by applying the SI prefix kilo and is used for measuring relatively large liquid volumes.

Because one liter is defined as a cubic decimeter (0.001 cubic meters), one kiloliter equals 1,000 cubic decimeters, or 1 cubic meter. Therefore, a kiloliter is exactly the same quantity as a cubic meter in practical terms. In many technical and engineering contexts, the cubic meter is preferred for larger volumes, but the kiloliter remains a convenient shorthand when volumes are naturally expressed in thousands of liters.

Kiloliters are commonly used in water resources, civil and agricultural engineering, and bulk-liquid industries. They appear in measurements for municipal water storage, irrigation tanks, industrial process streams, and bulk liquid shipments. For example, a small swimming pool might hold several hundred kiloliters, while a tanker truck may carry tens of kiloliters of liquid.

Notation and usage notes: the official symbol for the kiloliter is kL. The liter itself is an accepted unit with SI status, though not an SI base unit, and the kiloliter is formed by applying the kilo- prefix to the liter. In practice, the cubic meter (m^3) is often used interchangeably with the kiloliter for larger volumes, which helps avoid confusion when comparing with other metric volume measurements.