The light year is a unit of length in the Astronomical system of units. It uses the symbol ly.
Often confused with a unit of time as it contains the word "year", it is actually defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as the amount of distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days).
Using the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s or 'c') and the Julian year (as apposed to the Gregorian year which is 365.2425 days), we can equivalate 1 light year as 9,460,730,472,580,800 metres or ≈ 9.46 trillion kilometres.
The kilometre is a unit of length and is a multiple of the metre; an SI derived unit. It has the symbol km.
A kilometre is equal to 1000m, 1094 yards and 0.621 miles.
Kilometres is used to measure road distances in the US, though the UK is still using the imperial "sister" miles.