“Kilometer” or “Kilometre”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 10 prefer “kilometer” and 1 prefer “kilometre”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	kilometer	kilometre	Preference
United States	98	2	“kilometer”
United Kingdom	67	33	“kilometer”
India	12	88	“kilometre”
Philippines	99	1	“kilometer”
Canada	59	41	“kilometer”
Australia	50	50	No clear preference
Liberia	100	0	“kilometer”
Ireland	63	37	“kilometer”
New Zealand	57	43	“kilometer”
Jamaica	78	22	“kilometer”
Trinidad & Tobago	80	20	“kilometer”
Guyana	100	0	“kilometer”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“kilometer”

…reached six or seven per kilometer (0.6 mi) of front line.
…a distance of about a kilometer whose archives are still present.
Bagolatao has a three kilometer shoreline of white pebbles.
…a terminus for the 90.7 kilometer Yonesaka Line.
…a one and a half kilometer long new line from the…
…he flies well over a kilometer at an altitude of 25…
…at Peeran Road, just 12 kilometer away drive from mansehra city.
…meter of difference for each kilometer of travel-, which makes a…
…the driver: 3 Pfennig per kilometer
The bombardment, just a kilometer away from the Panama border,…

“kilometre”

…in the 2 × 10 kilometre pursuit, finishing the first classical…
The Women's 4 × 5 kilometre relay at the FIS Nordic…
…Antwerp, Belgium in the 3 kilometre walk where he won the…
They completed the one kilometre course in a time of…
Since 1936, one kilometre south of Dirmstein, the Autobahn…
…May 2007 for a 5000 kilometre, six-month trek east across Canada.
A slang term for the kilometre in the US and UK…
In the final kilometre, the Katusha team moved to…
…excellent work in the last kilometre.
…of 46 inhabitants per square kilometre, the density in Yonne is…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Too much to remember?

Looking for a tool that handles this for you wherever you write?

Install Sapling Try the grammar checker