Conversion formula

The conversion factor from centimeters to decimeters is 0.1, which means that 1 centimeter is equal to 0.1 decimeters:

1 cm = 0.1 dm

To convert 20 centimeters into decimeters we have to multiply 20 by the conversion factor in order to get the length amount from centimeters to decimeters. We can also form a simple proportion to calculate the result:

1 cm → 0.1 dm

20 cm → L_(dm)

Solve the above proportion to obtain the length L in decimeters:

L_(dm) = 20 cm × 0.1 dm

L_(dm) = 2 dm

The final result is:

20 cm → 2 dm

We conclude that 20 centimeters is equivalent to 2 decimeters:

20 centimeters = 2 decimeters

Alternative conversion

We can also convert by utilizing the inverse value of the conversion factor. In this case 1 decimeter is equal to 0.5 × 20 centimeters.

Another way is saying that 20 centimeters is equal to 1 ÷ 0.5 decimeters.

Approximate result

For practical purposes we can round our final result to an approximate numerical value. We can say that twenty centimeters is approximately two decimeters:

20 cm ≅ 2 dm

An alternative is also that one decimeter is approximately zero point five times twenty centimeters.

Conversion table

centimeters to decimeters chart

For quick reference purposes, below is the conversion table you can use to convert from centimeters to decimeters