How many kilograms are in 1 liter of soil?

"Liters to Kilograms" Calculator

How many kilograms are in 1 liter of soil?

Answer

1 liter of soil weighs

1.3–1.5 kg

The bulk density of soil is 1.3–1.5 kg/L, measured like this: dry loose earth; wet compacted soil is 1.75–1.85, which is a different state. The range here comes from packing, not from any doubt about the source.

How the mass of 1 liter of soil was worked out

mass = volume × density

For a bulk material the density depends on packing, so the sum runs along both edges of the band: the lower edge is a loose pour, the upper one is dense packing.

1.3 kg/L × 1 L

1.3 kg

loose pour

1.5 kg/L × 1 L

1.5 kg

dense packing

The density comes from FAO, Earth dry loose. Dry loose earth; wet compacted soil is 1.75–1.85, which is a different state.

Why a liter and a kilogram are not the same thing

A liter measures volume, a kilogram measures mass, and density is what ties them together: how many kilograms one liter of this particular substance comes to. The coincidence that makes people treat them as one thing is historical — in 1795 the gram was defined as the mass of one cubic centimeter of water, so a liter of water weighed a kilogram by construction. For anything else the equality breaks.

The extremes of this page make it obvious: one liter of LPG weighs 0.51 kg, while one liter of densely packed sand weighs 2 kg — four times more at the very same volume.

If the substance is not known in advance, start from how many kilograms are in 1 liter — the same volume across every substance at once.

The other way round: how much room a kilogram takes

This page starts from a volume and answers in kilograms. The opposite question — how many liters a given mass comes to — is what the kilograms to liters calculator is for. Both read the same density table, so the two pages agree wherever the answer is volume times density.

For soil that means 1 liter weighs 1.3–1.5 kg here, and one kilogram of it takes 0.67–0.77 liters there.

If you are filling a site rather than a bucket

This page answers «how much does this much soil weigh». For a bed or a lawn you work in volume rather than mass, and that is the topsoil calculator: length, width, depth — and the answer in cubic yards and tons.

Its density is 1,330 kg per cubic meter, that is 1.33 kg/L, and that value sits inside the band of 1.3–1.5 kg/L this page works with: dry loose earth.

Related Calculations

About "Liters to Kilograms" Calculator

This calculator converts liters to kilograms through the density of the substance: mass equals volume times density. A liter on its own has no weight — a liter of water weighs almost exactly a kilogram, a liter of honey close to one and a half, and a liter of gasoline about three quarters. For example, it can help you find out how many kilograms are in 1 liter of soil? (The answer is: 1.3–1.5). For bulk materials — cement, sand, soil, coal, vegetables — density depends on how the material is packed, so the page prints a range and names the state it was measured in, instead of passing one number off as a physical constant.

"Liters to Kilograms" Calculator

How much 1 liter of each substance weighs

Substance	Mass	Density, kg/L
Beer	1.01 kg	1.01
Cement	1.25–1.4 kg	1.25–1.4
Coal	0.65–1.27 kg	0.654–1.266
Cucumbers	0.62–0.64 kg	0.62–0.64
Diesel	0.83 kg	0.834
Gasoline	0.74 kg	0.74
Honey	1.42 kg	1.42
Juice	1.06 kg	1.06
LPG	0.51 kg	0.51
Milk	1.03 kg	1.03
Mineral spirits	0.78 kg	0.78
Motor oil	0.85 kg	0.85
Sand	1.65–2 kg	1.65–2
Soil	1.3–1.5 kg	1.3–1.5
Sugar	0.72–0.9 kg	0.72–0.9
Tomatoes	0.55–0.6 kg	0.55–0.6
Vegetable oil	0.92 kg	0.92
Wall primer	1 kg	1
Water	1 kg	0.998

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