How many steps is 4 km?
About 5,700 steps for an adult of average height, from about 5,000 at 195 cm to 6,400 at 150 cm. On its own, 4 km takes nearly anyone past the 5,000 steps below which research calls a day sedentary.
The numbers
Steps in 4 km, by height
| 150 cm (4 ft 11 in) | about 6,400 steps |
| 155 cm (5 ft 1 in) | about 6,200 steps |
| 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) | about 6,000 steps |
| 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) | about 5,900 steps |
| 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) | about 5,700 steps |
| 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) | about 5,500 steps |
| 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) | about 5,400 steps |
| 185 cm (6 ft 1 in) | about 5,200 steps |
| 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) | about 5,100 steps |
| 195 cm (6 ft 5 in) | about 5,000 steps |
Step length is about 41% of height. Give or take 10% for how you walk.
Against a daily step count
| A 5,000-step day | 114% of it |
| A 7,000-step day | 81% of it |
| A 10,000-step day | 57% of it |
For an adult of average height, walking only this distance.
On a reTrek route
4.0 km is 1/12 of the way to Everest Base Camp. At that distance a day, the whole route takes about 15 days.
About the Everest Base Camp routeTry your own distance
Steps
about 5,700
5,100 to 6,300 depending on your stride, about 0.70 m a step at this height.
Distance
4.0 km · 2.5 miles
Time on foot
48 min
at 5 km/h, no stops
Calories
Depends on your weight more than anything else. Enter it to see an estimate.
That is 1/12 of the way to Everest Base Camp.
How many steps is 4 km?
About 5,700 for an adult 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) tall. A walking step is roughly 41% of your height, about 0.70 m at 170 cm, so four kilometres takes 5,700 of them. Someone 150 cm tall takes about 6,400, and someone 195 cm about 5,000. Four kilometres is 2.49 miles, about 48 minutes at a normal pace.
Four kilometres and the 5,000-step line
Step researchers use 5,000 steps a day as the line below which a day counts as sedentary. Four kilometres is past it on its own for everyone shorter than about 193 cm, before a single step of the rest of the day is counted. So a daily 4 km walk does one clear thing: by that definition, it rules out a sedentary day, whatever else the day holds.
A reason to walk today
Most of us know we should walk more and still skip it, because “go for a walk” has no finish line. reTrek gives you one: pick a famous route, like the Camino de Santiago or the Inca Trail, and every walk moves you further along it, with a short film about the place waiting at each milestone. You stop looking for a spare moment to walk and start walking to reach the next milestone.
At 4 km (2.5 miles) a day, Lukla to Everest Base Camp takes about 14 days. Walk it with a friend and pool your steps, or race them there. Everest Base Camp is free. Get reTrek.
Other distances in steps
Sources: One-mile step count at walking and running speeds, Hoeger et al., ACSM's Health and Fitness Journal, 2008 · A step-defined sedentary lifestyle index, Tudor-Locke et al., 2013