How many steps are in a mile?
About 2,100 to 2,600 for most adults walking. A mile is 63,360 inches, so the answer is that divided by your step: 2,640 steps at a 2-foot step, 2,112 at 2½ feet. Your iPhone already knows yours: open Health, tap Browse, then Mobility, then Walking Step Length.
Steps for common distances
Rounded to the nearest ten. Find the column closest to your own step length.
| Distance | 2 ft step | 2¼ ft step | 2½ ft step |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 mile | 2,640 | 2,350 | 2,110 |
| 2 miles | 5,280 | 4,690 | 4,220 |
| 3 miles | 7,920 | 7,040 | 6,340 |
| 4 miles | 10,560 | 9,390 | 8,450 |
| 5 miles | 13,200 | 11,730 | 10,560 |
| 6 miles | 15,840 | 14,080 | 12,670 |
| 10 miles | 26,400 | 23,470 | 21,120 |
| 5K | 8,200 | 7,290 | 6,560 |
| 10K | 16,400 | 14,580 | 13,120 |
| Half marathon | 34,610 | 30,760 | 27,690 |
| Marathon | 69,220 | 61,530 | 55,370 |
Why there is no single number
Steps per mile is just a mile divided by the length of your step, and steps differ. Taller people take longer ones, and everyone’s gets longer as they speed up, which is why a running mile takes far fewer steps than a walking one. A charted number for “a 6 foot man” is an average of other people’s legs.
For a sense of the middle: a study that fitted adults with motion sensors and recorded them walking around at home for a month measured a median stride of 1.2 metres. A stride is two steps, so that is a step of about 60 cm, almost exactly two feet. Small study, but real walking rather than a lab treadmill.
Your iPhone has already measured yours
Since iOS 14 the Health app records Walking Step Length, which Apple defines as the average length of your step when walking steadily over flat ground. It is measured from the phone in your pocket, with no watch needed. Open Health, tap Browse, then Mobility.
It is reasonably good. A 2023 study in Scientific Reports checked it against a laboratory gait system in 27 adults and rated the agreement good, with the phone reading steps about 3 cm longer than they were. So if Health says 70 cm, call it 67, and your mile is 63,360 inches divided by that: roughly 2,400 steps.
You rarely need to do the sum at all. Health records the distance you walked alongside your steps, and Humblebrag reads both, so the miles in your comparisons are your miles, not a chart’s.
What a mile of steps equals
Each one links to where the number came from.