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Wire Gauges
The common US wire gauges - AWG gauges
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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.
The AWG table below is for a single, solid, round conductor. Because of the small gaps between the strands in a stranded wire, a stranded wire with the same current-carrying capacity and electrical resistance as a solid wire, always have a slightly larger overall diameter.
The higher the number - the thinner the wire. Typical household wiring is AWG number 12 or 14. For telephone wires there are common with AWG 22, 24, or 26.
| 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 | 0.014 | 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 |
The higher the gauge number, the smaller the diameter, and the thinner the wire.
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.
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