© .shock young man ready for run on the start position ready to run
© .shock
Why should you want to know?
There are all sorts of reasons for wanting to convert miles to kilometres, but here are the commonest ones…
Runners 5k is a common distance for runners, and "How long is a 5k run" is a frequently asked question. Here is an approximate sufficient answer and a simple way to work it out.
Walkers and motorists
Again, a close answer will be good enough for these types of reasons. A couch potato might want to know if a 5k walk is feasible, and while motorists are more likely to be dealing with larger numbers, the principles are the same.
Students, school children, and others doing calculations
For these purposes, a more accurate answer is required. When doing maths at school or college, or later, an approximate number of miles is not good enough.
How many miles is 5 kilometres?
For all practical purposes such as running, walking, or driving, 5k is 3 miles. In fact, the accurate answer to 6 decimal places is that 5k is 3.106856 miles. However, not many people will need to know it to that level of accuracy. We will now take a look at how you work out kilometre to mile conversions, at whatever level of accuracy you need.
How to calculate kilometre to miles
Easy approximate methods
The simplest way is to remember that 5 kilometres is approximately 3 miles. That way, you know that 10k is 6 miles, 15k is 9 miles, and so on. If you can manage your 3 and 5 times tables, you can work it out.
A slightly more accurate way, which you’ll need for numbers of kilometres other than 5, 10 etc, is to multiply by 5 and divide by 8 (multiply by five-eighths). So if you want to know how many miles are in 7k, you multiply by 5, which equals 35, then divide by eight, which gives between 4 and 5 miles.
More accurate methods
Remember that a kilometre is 0.6213712 miles, and multiply by that figure each time. But it is easier to use modern technology to get the answer. You can easily buy a metric conversion calculator, which will give you this type of conversion, and many more. Or the iPhone has an excellent conversion app which is how the author got the conversion quoted to 6 or 7 decimal places.