Practical Antennas

American Wire Gauge (AWG) Table

The American Wire Gauge (AWG), also known as Brown and Sharpe (B&S), is the standard US measurement for copper wire sizes. Smaller wires have larger gauge numbers, and often only the even numbered sizes are used. It may be referred to as “AWG #12” or “12 AWG”, but very often just “#12 wire”, or, in conversation, as “12 Gauge” or “Number 12” wire.

Note: Great Britain used the Birmingham Wire Gauge (BWG) instead: the two differ by about 2 gauge sizes for the same wire. If you see a reference such as “#12 wire” and the exact thickness is important, then you may need to determine which gauge is being used.

For values off the end of the table, an increase by 6 in the wire gauge cuts the wire diameter about in half.