Length Converter

How many cm are in an inch?

Published: 8/3/2021 Last updated: 8/3/2021
How many cm are in an inch? Is there an exact result or only an approximation? If these questions are bothering you, you are in the right place. It is time to finally know the answers.
How many cm are in an inch?
Table of contents:

How many cm are in an inch? Is there an exact result or only an approximation? If these questions are bothering you, you are in the right place. It is time to finally know the answers.

How many cm in an inch is commonly asked by people from out of the United States and the United Kingdom. It is understandable. After all, most countries worldwide use centimeters to measure the length, not inches.

But don’t worry. The answer to this question, that is to how many cm is an inch, is quite simple. We will provide it to you in this article. So let’s cut to the chase.

An inch and a centimeter – the values

To know how many cm is in an inch, you need to know the values of an inch and a centimeter first. So how does the comparison of these 2 units of length look?

Inch Centimeter
1 2.54
0.393700787 1

At first sight, you obviously can see the values differ considerably. It means that also the length given in inches differs considerably from the length given in centimeters. You have to remember that when you, for instance, check the measures of a T-shirt on a holiday trip to the US.

How many cm in an inch – the exact result

We have shown you only a comparison in a short table. Now it is time to give you an exact answer to the question from the title – how many cm are in an inch.

So how many cm to an inch exactly? Is there exactly 2.54 cm? Or maybe is this result only rounded off to 2 decimal places?

Here is the answer – in an inch are 2.54 centimeters exactly:

  • 1 inch = 2.54 cm.

No more, no less. This is not an approximation.

An inch and a centimeter – the difference

If you know now how many cm are in an inch, you are probably wondering how big the difference between an inch and a centimeter is. And we are going to answer that question.

To know the difference between these 2 units of length you need to make a quick calculation. It is based on subtraction. Just subtract 1 cm from the equivalent of 1 inch given in centimeters.

How does it look in practice?

2.54 cm (exactly 1 inch) - 1 cm = 1.54 cm

Quite simple, right?

And now you can see that 1 inch is bigger by 1.54 cm than 1 cm. You have to admit that the difference is pretty big. So it is better to remember about it.

But there is also a simpler way to remember how many cm are in an inch and how much bigger is an inch than the cm.

How many cm to inch – remember it easily

You know that the exact result of how many cm are in an inch is 2.54. You also know that 1 inch is bigger by 1.54 cm than 1 cm. But it can be quite problematic to remember.

If you don’t need an exact result, you can use the rounded off result of how many cm to an inch:

  • 1 inch ≈ 2.5 cm.

It looks simpler, don’t you think?

On the base of this approximation, you can also simply remember that 1 inch is 2.5 times bigger than 1 cm.

We are sure that a number like this one will be so much easier to remember for you. And also easier to make quick calculations, for instance, when shopping. Even if you won’t use your smartphone to make them.

Summary of how many cm are in an inch

At the end of this article, a quick summary of all you need to remember after reading this article. We gathered this information in 4 short points.

The first 2 points concern the exact values:

  1. An exact value of how many cm is in an inch: 2.54 cm.
  2. An exact value of how bigger an inch than a cm is: 1.54 cm.

And the next 2 points concern the rounded-off values:

  1. A rounded-off value of how many cm in an inch: 2.5 cm.
  2. A rounded value of how many times bigger an inch than a cm is: 2.5 cm.

We hope that we have proven to you that the topic of how many cm are in an inch is quite easy to understand, as we promised at the beginning of the article. We can’t wait until you will use this knowledge in practice.

Do you need more information about inches and centimeters? Learn how to make inches to cm conversion.