American Wire Gauge to mm² Conversion

American Wire Gauge (AWG) is a U.S. standard set of wire conductor sizes. The "gauge" is related to the diameter of the wire.

The AWG standard includes copper, aluminum and other materials. Current electrical code usually specifies household wiring to be AWG number 12 or 14. Telephone wire is usually 22, 24, or 26 AWG. The higher the gauge number, the smaller the diameter and the thinner the wire.

The table below can be used to convert American Wire Gauge (AWG) to square mm cross sectional area.

American Wire Gauge (AWG)	Diameter (inches)	Diameter (mm)	Cross Sectional Area (mm²)
0000	0.46	11.68	107.16
000	0.4096	10.40	84.97
00	0.3648	9.27	67.40
0	0.3249	8.25	53.46
1	0.2893	7.35	42.39
2	0.2576	6.54	33.61
3	0.2294	5.83	26.65
4	0.2043	5.19	21.14
5	0.1819	4.62	16.76
6	0.162	4.11	13.29
7	0.1443	3.67	10.55
8	0.1285	3.26	8.36
9	0.1144	2.91	6.63
10	0.1019	2.59	5.26
11	0.0907	2.30	4.17
12	0.0808	2.05	3.31
13	0.072	1.83	2.63
14	0.0641	1.63	2.08
15	0.0571	1.45	1.65
16	0.0508	1.29	1.31
17	0.0453	1.15	1.04
18	0.0403	1.02	0.82
19	0.0359	0.91	0.65
20	0.032	0.81	0.52
21	0.0285	0.72	0.41
22	0.0254	0.65	0.33
23	0.0226	0.57	0.26
24	0.0201	0.51	0.20
25	0.0179	0.45	0.16
26	0.0159	0.40	00.13

The AWG - American Wire Gauge - is used as a standard method of denoting wire diameter, measuring the diameter of the conductor (the bare wire) with the insulation removed. AWG is sometimes also known as Brown and Sharpe (B&S) Wire Gauge.

AWG	Diameter (mm)	Diameter (in)	Square (mm²)	Resistance (ohm/1000m)
40	0.08	.	0.0050	3420
39	0.09	.	0.0064	2700
38	0.10	0.0040	0.0078	2190
37	0.11	0.0045	0.0095	1810
36	0.13	0.005	0.013	1300
35	0.14	0.0056	0.015	1120
34	0.16	0.0063	0.020	844
33	0.18	0.0071	0.026	676
32	0.20	0.008	0.031	547
30	0.25	0.01	0.049	351
28	0.33	0.013	0.08	232.0
27	0.36	0.018	0.096	178
26	0.41	0.016	0.13	137
25	0.45	0.018	0.16	108
24	0.51	0.02	0.20	87.5
22	0.64	0.025	0.33	51.7
20	0.81	0.032	0.50	34.1
18	1.02	0.04	0.82	21.9
16	1.29	0.051	1.3	13.0
14	1.63	0.064	2.0	8.54
13	1.80	0.072	2.6	6.76
12	2.05	0.081	3.3	5.4
10	2.59	0.10	5.26	3.4
8	3.25	0.13	8.30	2.2
6	4.115	0.17	13.30	1.5
4	5.189	0.20	21.15	0.8
2	6.543	0.26	33.62	0.5
1	7.348	0.29	42.41	0.4
0	8.252	0.33	53.49	0.31
00 (2/0)	9.266	0.37	67.43	0.25
000 (3/0)	10.40	0.41	85.01	0.2
0000 (4/0)	11.684	0.46	107.22	0.16

Because of less electrical resistance a thick wire will carry more current with less voltage drop than a thin wire. For a long distance it may be necessary to increase the wire diameter - reducing the gauge - to limit the voltage drop.

American Wire Gauge to mm2 Conversion

American Wire Gauge to mm² Conversion