Unit converter

Knots to kilometres per hour.

Convert kn to km/h and km/h to kn. Type in either box and the other follows. One knot is 1.852 km/h exactly. Wind warnings and boat speeds come in knots almost everywhere.

From

kn → km/hExact definition

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Display precision

Knots to kilometres per hour — common values, to 6 significant figures.
kn	km/h
1 kn	1.852 km/h
5 kn	9.26 km/h
10 kn	18.52 km/h
15 kn	27.78 km/h
20 kn	37.04 km/h
25 kn	46.3 km/h
30 kn	55.56 km/h
40 kn	74.08 km/h
50 kn	92.6 km/h
60 kn	111.12 km/h

1 kn = 1.852 km/h

1 km/h = 0.5399568035 kn

Conversion goes through m/s in both directions, so neither figure is rounded on the way.

Definitions

The knot is one nautical mile per hour, 1.852 km/h exactly. Shipping and aviation use it because it maps onto latitude.
The kilometre per hour is the speed unit on road signs across most of the world. Dividing by 3.6 gives metres per second.
This conversion is exact by definition. 1 kn = 1.852 km/h.
Speed is converted through m/s.

How it works

One direction multiplies and the other divides by the same number, so nothing is lost by going back and forth.

The value passes through m/s, the unit every other speed unit on the site is defined against, rather than a number written into this page on its own. That is why the figure here, the figure in the table above and the general speed converter always agree.

Display precision sets a maximum number of significant figures and trims trailing zeroes, so it changes what you see and never what was calculated. The editable box always holds a plain number at full working precision, so you can carry on from either side.

Common questions this answers: how many kilometres per hour in a knot (1.852), how many knots in a kilometre per hour (0.539957), and what 20 kn is in kilometres per hour (37.04 km/h).

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