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Comment by kiiski | Hacker News Reader

Why is that? I'm just curious, because I (finnish) can't associate two liters with anything of the top of my head. Everything is always one liter.

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The largest container of most soda brands available in American supermarkets is a 2L bottle.

The "family size" (or store size) soft drink bottles in Europe are usually 2L. Alternatively you can visualize 4 cans of energy drinks (bar the tiny redbull ones) or 4 small bottles of coke, or slightly more than 4 pints of beer ;)

I'm actually wondering what is 1L? The only thing I can think off is either the medium milk bottles or the "meal size" soft drink bottles that some convenience stores stock. Unless Finland has a very different bottling system than even Sweden I think you need to think again.

The 2L soft drinks are probably available, but I just never buy any of them. Milk, juice and yoghurt come in one liter packages.

From what I remember from most scandi supermarkets carton milks are 1 and 1.5L and plastic bottles are 2 and 2.5.

As far as soft drinks go bottles like these http://www.premierexports.co.uk/1595-2155-thickbox/diet-coke... are as far as I know standard across all of Europe and they are 2 liters.

I just went to my local S-Market and looked around a bit. The big soft drink bottles were all 1.5L (as noinsight said). Milk is available in 1.5L cartons too, but no plastic bottles of any kind. Of course, I do live in a pretty remote corner of the country, so maybe the selection isn't what it is in Helsinki.

Right, but I'd imagine you can conceptualize the 2l bottle of coke that you see in the supermarket - even if you don't buy it/drink it.

Sure, now that people mentioned them. That's why I said "can't associate .... of the top of my head". But that's not the point. The parent implied that there is something that's 2 liters that all Americans know, and I was curious as to what that is, because I, despite living in a metric country, couldn't think of anything.

It's far simpler for an American because soda in the US is widely available in three sizes:

* 12 fl oz (355 mL) aluminum can

* 20 fl oz (591 mL) plastic bottle

* 2L plastic bottle

Depending on the brand and store availability I've also seen 12 fl oz glass bottles, 1L bottles, and sometimes smaller sized cans as pretty standard sizes. Other types of drinks (such as energy drinks) can vary in what containers they use.

In general, though, if you're buying soda for a family or for more than one drink/meal, you're going to be buying a 2L bottle (and refer to it as such).

Do metric countries sell as many 2L soda bottles as the US does, relative to other soda sizes?

Actually, the soda bottles in Finland are 1,5 L at most.

2L soda bottles are ubiquitous.

Coincidentally, not in Finland. The largest soda bottles are 1,5 L.

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