How Many Cubic Feet Are in a Cubic Yard?
There are 27: a cubic yard is 3 ft × 3 ft × 3 ft = 27 cubic feet, about 0.76 cubic meters.
Why 27
A yard is 3 feet, and a cubic yard is a cube 3 feet on every side: 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 cubic feet. People often expect 9 because a square yard is 3 × 3 = 9 square feet, but volume has a third dimension.
Quick Conversions
| Equals | |
|---|---|
| 1 cubic yard | 27 cubic feet |
| 1 cubic yard | 46,656 cubic inches |
| 1 cubic yard | 0.765 cubic meters |
| 1 cubic meter | 1.31 cubic yards (35.3 cubic feet) |
| 1 cubic foot | about 28.3 liters |
Bags per Cubic Yard
Bagged mulch, soil and stone are labeled in cubic feet, so divide 27 by the bag size:
| Bag size | Bags per cubic yard |
|---|---|
| 0.5 cu ft | 54 |
| 0.75 cu ft | 36 |
| 1 cu ft | 27 |
| 1.5 cu ft | 18 |
| 2 cu ft | 13.5 |
| 3 cu ft | 9 |
Square Feet Covered at a Depth
Landscape materials are spread in a layer, so what you really want to know is how much area a yard covers:
Square feet covered = 324 ÷ depth in inches
| Depth | One cubic yard covers |
|---|---|
| 1 in | 324 sq ft |
| 2 in | 162 sq ft |
| 3 in | 108 sq ft |
| 4 in | 81 sq ft |
| 6 in | 54 sq ft |
It also works the other way round: cubic yards = square feet × depth in inches ÷ 324. The 324 is 27 cubic feet × 12 inches.
Skip the Arithmetic
The mulch, topsoil, and gravel calculators do these conversions for any shape and depth, in feet or metric.