Kilogram

kilogram
A series of 5, 2, 1, 0.5 and 0.2 kilogram weights, made out of rusty cast iron
General information
Unit system	SI
Unit of	mass
Symbol	kg
Conversions
1 kg in ...	... is equal to ...
Avoirdupois	≈ 2.204623 pounds[Note 1]
British Gravitational	≈ 0.0685 slugs
CGS units	1000 grams
Atomic mass units	6.02214076×1026 Da

The kilogram (also kilogramme^[1]) is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially.^[2] It means 'one thousand grams'.

The kilogram is a SI base unit, defined in terms of two other base units, the second and the metre and the Planck constant, a SI defining constant.^[3]: 131 A properly equipped metrology laboratory can calibrate a mass measurement instrument such as a Kibble balance as a primary standard for the kilogram mass.^[4]

The kilogram was originally defined in 1795 during the French Revolution as the mass of one litre of water. The current definition of a kilogram agrees with this original definition to within 30 parts per million. In 1799, the platinum Kilogramme des Archives replaced it as the standard of mass. In 1889, a cylinder of platinum-iridium, the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK), became the standard of the unit of mass for the metric system and remained so for 130 years, before the current standard was adopted in 2019.^[5]

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