Units of Mass

The fundemental unit for measuring mass is the gram.

There are also other units for measuring large and small quantities, the most common are:

kilogram	kg	1,000 g
hectogram	hg	100 g
decagram	dag	10 g
gram	g	1 g
decigram	dg	0.1 g
centigram	cg	0.01 g
milligram	mg	0.001 g

Note that each unit is 10 times larger than the previous.

The problem of converting units to other units becomes an issue of multiplying or dividing the unit by one followed by as many zeros as there are places between them on the table above..

50 kg dg.

In this case, multiply (because the kilogram is greater than the decigram) the unit by one followed by four zeros, since there are four places between both units.

50 kg · 10,000 = 500,000 dg

408 mg dg

In this case, divide (because the milligram is smaller than the decigram) by one followed by two zeros, since there are two places between both units.

408 : 100 = 4.08 dg

Examples

Convert to grams:

5 kg 5 hm 7 dag 5,000 g + 500 g + 70 g = 5,570 g

3 g 2 cg 3 mg 3 g + 0.02 g + 0.003 g = 3.023 g

25.56 dag + 526.9 dg 255.6 g + 52.69 g = 308.29 g

53,600 mg + 9,830 cg 53.6 g + 98.3 g = 151.9 g

1.83 hg + 9.7 dag + 3,700 cg 183 g + 97 g + 37 g = 317 g

Other units of mass

Metric ton or tonne

It is used to measure very large masses.

1 t = 1,000 kg

Quintal metric

1 q = 100 kg