Conversion from Deciliters to Centiliters

Information about the Deciliter (dL)

The decilitre is a unit of volume equal to one tenth of a litre, or one hundred millilitres. Its symbol is dL, and the lower-case dl is common. Although the deci prefix has fallen out of use almost everywhere else, the decilitre is alive in two quite separate places: the Nordic kitchen and the clinical laboratory.

Scandinavian cooking is built on it. Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish recipes give flour, sugar, milk, cream and stock in decilitres, and a set of nested measuring cups marked in decilitres and fractions of one is standard kitchen equipment. Where an English recipe says a cup and an Italian one weighs the flour, a Nordic recipe asks for three decilitres, which is both faster and more repeatable than either.

Switzerland uses it for drink. Wine in a Swiss restaurant is ordered by the decilitre, so a glass is one or two and a carafe five, and the measure is printed on the glass. Because a decilitre is close to the volume of a modest wine pour, the unit gives customers an exact quantity rather than a description, which is what licensing law in several cantons requires.

Clinical chemistry is its other stronghold, and there it decides how a whole country reads its blood tests. Glucose, cholesterol and creatinine are reported in milligrams per decilitre in the United States, Japan, France, Italy and Spain, and in millimoles per litre in Britain, Canada, Australia and the Nordic countries. A fasting glucose of 100 milligrams per decilitre is 5.6 millimoles per litre, and the same person's result therefore looks entirely different depending on the laboratory.

Haemoglobin crosses the divide. It is reported in grams per decilitre almost everywhere, so a normal adult value of 13 to 17 grams per decilitre reads the same in most of the world. The decilitre survives in these places because a hundred millilitres of blood is a convenient reference quantity and because changing an established reporting unit risks misreading a result.

For scale, a decilitre is a small glass of water, half a mug of coffee, or the volume of a large egg and a half. It converts to 3.38 United States fluid ounces or 3.52 imperial fluid ounces, and to a little under half a United States cup, which is why converted Nordic recipes rarely come out in round numbers.

One decilitre equals 100 millilitres, 0.1 litres, about 3.38 US fluid ounces, or about 3.52 imperial fluid ounces.

Information about the Centiliter (cL)

The centilitre is a unit of volume equal to one hundredth of a litre, or ten millilitres. Its symbol is cL, and the lower-case cl is also used. Unlike most centi-prefixed units it has a real commercial life, because it happens to be the size that suits drink labelling, and in several countries it is the form printed on almost every bottle.

Drink containers are its main employment. In France, Belgium, Italy and Spain a wine bottle is labelled 75 cL, a beer 33 or 50 cL, a soft drink 33 cL, and a spirits miniature 5 cL. The same containers carry 750 ml and 330 ml in Britain, Germany and most of the English-speaking world, which is why identical bottles appear to bear different numbers depending on where they were filled.

Bar measures follow the same split. A standard spirit serving is 4 cL in France and 2 or 4 cL in Germany and Austria, while Britain pours 25 or 35 millilitres and the United States uses fluid ounces. European cocktail recipes are written in centilitres throughout, so a classic proportion of six parts to three to one appears as 6 cL, 3 cL and 1 cL, which reads more cleanly than the millilitre equivalents.

There is no legal difference between the forms. European Union labelling rules accept millilitres, centilitres and litres, so the choice is a matter of national typographic habit rather than of regulation. Where centilitres are used, the number on a bottle stays between one and a hundred for every ordinary container size, which is exactly the range a prefix is supposed to deliver.

The unit is also easy to picture. Ten millilitres is two teaspoons, a generous mouthful of water, or the dose measure supplied with a bottle of cough syrup. A tablespoon is one and a half centilitres, an espresso is about three, and a wine glass poured to a standard measure is twelve to fifteen.

Converting between systems needs some care because a centilitre falls between the two customary small measures. It is 0.338 United States fluid ounces and 0.352 imperial fluid ounces, so neither reads as a round number, and drink volumes converted between Europe and North America almost always end up rounded rather than exact.

One centilitre equals 10 millilitres, 0.01 litres, about 0.338 US fluid ounces, or about 0.352 imperial fluid ounces.