Convert Kilometers to Feet

About converting Kilometers to Feet

Kilometers (km) and Feet (ft) are both units of length, so converting between them is a single multiplication: multiply your Kilometers figure by 3,280.84. Ten Kilometers comes to 32,808.4 Feet, and a hundred works out at 328,083.99 Feet.

Rule of thumb: going from Kilometers to Feet multiplies, so the figure always grows — one Kilometer is already 3,280.84 Feet. If your answer came out smaller, you have the conversion the wrong way round.

What is a Kilometer?

A kilometer is exactly 1,000 meters — the "kilo" prefix means a thousand, as it does everywhere in the metric system. It is the unit almost every country uses for road distances and speed limits, the main exceptions being the United States and the United Kingdom, which still post miles. Its convenience is that it sits at a human scale for travel: a brisk walk covers roughly a kilometer in ten to twelve minutes, which is why city planners talk about the "fifteen-minute" neighbourhood in these terms.

What is a Foot?

A foot is twelve inches, or exactly 0.3048 meters. The name is not a metaphor — it descends from body-based measurement, though a real foot is rather shorter than the unit. Despite the world largely going metric, the foot is stubbornly entrenched in two places worth knowing about: American building construction, where lumber and floor plans are dimensioned in feet and inches, and international aviation, where altitude is reported in feet almost everywhere on Earth regardless of what the country uses on the ground.

To put both in perspective: a kilometer is about a twelve-minute walk, while a typical room ceiling is about 8 feet high.

The converter above updates as you type, and the table lists common values for quick reference. Need the opposite direction? Use the Feet to Kilometers converter, or browse all Length converters.