Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland Measure Converter
Three Chinese-speaking kitchens, three different jin. Convert Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland weights and cups without breaking a recipe.
A Taiwanese recipe calls for one jin of pork; a Hong Kong one calls for one catty of prawns; a mainland one calls for one jin of flour. The words look identical and the weights are not: 600 g, 604.8 g and 500 g. This converter keeps the three systems apart and converts between them.
Read one regional unit
Pick the system the recipe came from, then the amount and unit.
Convert between systems
For when a Taiwan recipe is cooked in a Hong Kong kitchen, or the other way round.
Three systems side by side
| System | 1 jin | 1 liang | 1 qian | 1 cup | 1 tbsp | Note |
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Why the numbers differ
Taiwan uses the Taiwanese catty of 600 g, divided into sixteen liang of 37.5 g. Hong Kong uses the picul-based catty of about 604.79 g, also sixteen liang. The mainland switched to a 500 g jin in 1959 and divides it into ten liang of 50 g.
Cups are not standard either: Taiwan and the mainland commonly use 240 ml, Hong Kong recipes often use 250 ml. When a recipe is written in cups, weigh the first batch once and write the gram figure on the page.