Conversion table: American Wire Gauge [AWG] and metric wire standards

The American Wire Gauge is a measure for how thick a wire is. The number was originally related the amount of stretching that was needed to produce such a wire. The higher the number the thinner the wire.

The metric system outside of the Americas uses the cross sectional area in mm² to describe how thick a wire is. That cross section is directly related to the resistance of the wire.

The table below provides a conversion between the two units. From the below table one could get the impression that there are more wire diameters in the American system. The opposite is however true. There are theoretically an infinite amount of diameters in the metric system as the measure is directly related to the size. From an engineering point of view it makes however sense to use standard sizes and they are shown below.

AWG value	Diameter [inch]	Diameter [mm]	cross section [mm²]	Copper resistance [ohm/km]	common metric equivalent [mm²]
5	0.1819	4.621	16.8	1.028
6	0.1620	4.115	13.3	1.296
7	0.1443	3.665	10.5	1.634
8	0.1285	3.264	8.37	2.061
9	0.1144	2.906	6.63	2.599
10	0.1019	2.588	5.26	3.277
11	0.0907	2.305	4.17	4.132	4.0
12	0.0808	2.053	3.31	5.211
13	0.0720	1.828	2.62	6.571	2.5
14	0.0641	1.628	2.08	8.286
15	0.0571	1.450	1.65	10.45	1.5
16	0.0508	1.291	1.31	13.17
17	0.0453	1.150	1.04	16.61	1.0
18	0.0403	1.024	0.823	20.95	0.75
19	0.0359	0.912	0.653	26.42
20	0.0320	0.812	0.518	33.31	0.5
21	0.0285	0.723	0.410	42.00
22	0.0253	0.644	0.326	52.96
23	0.0226	0.573	0.258	66.79
24	0.0201	0.511	0.205	84.22	0.25
25	0.0179	0.455	0.162	106.2
26	0.0159	0.405	0.129	133.9	0.14
27	0.0142	0.361	0.102	168.9
28	0.0126	0.321	0.0810	212.9	0.09
29	0.0113	0.286	0.0642	268.5
30	0.0100	0.255	0.0509	338.6
31	0.00893	0.227	0.0404	426.9
32	0.00795	0.202	0.0320	538.3

Common values:

2.5mm²: Loudspeaker cable, 360V European kitchen stove connection
1.5mm²: European house hold installation with 230V
0.75mm²: European flexible and light appliance cord with 230V
0.14mm², AWG26: Hobby electronics, telephone cable
0.09mm², AWG28: Very fine cable for ear phones
AWG 12: heavy 120V household installation cable
AWG 14: thin 120V household installation cable