Utiliki

Area Converters

42 converters, all running in your browser.

Area units divide into two families that meet awkwardly: the geometric ones, which are simply a length squared, and the land ones, which come from how much a person or a team could work in a day.

The geometric units are straightforward. A square metre is a metre on each side; converting between them means squaring the length factor, so a metre being 3.28 feet makes a square metre 10.76 square feet — not 3.28. Forgetting to square the factor is the most common error in area conversion.

The land units are historical. An acre was originally the area a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, standardised as one chain by one furlong — 4,840 square yards. The hectare is its metric replacement at exactly 10,000 square metres, which makes it about 2.47 acres. Both remain in everyday use: property in the US and UK is commonly quoted in acres, and agricultural land almost everywhere else in hectares.

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Conversion factors

FromToMultiply by
Square MetersSquare Kilometers1.0000e-6
Square MetersSquare Feet10.76391
Square MetersSquare Yards1.19599
Square MetersSquare Miles3.8610e-7
Square MetersAcres2.4711e-4
Square KilometersSquare Meters1000000
Square KilometersSquare Feet1.0764e+7
Square KilometersSquare Yards1.1960e+6
Square KilometersSquare Miles0.38610216
Square KilometersAcres247.10538
Square FeetSquare Meters0.09290304
Square FeetSquare Kilometers9.2903e-8
Square FeetSquare Yards0.11111111
Square FeetSquare Miles3.5870e-8
Square FeetAcres2.2957e-5
Square YardsSquare Meters0.83612736
Square YardsSquare Kilometers8.3613e-7
Square YardsSquare Feet9
Square YardsSquare Miles3.2283e-7
Square YardsAcres2.0661e-4

Square the Factor, Not the Length

The single most common area error is converting with the length factor instead of its square. A metre is 3.28084 feet, so a square metre is 3.28084² = 10.7639 square feet. Using 3.28 gives an answer that is wrong by a factor of three.

The same applies to volume with a cube: a cubic metre is 3.28084³ = 35.3147 cubic feet.

ConversionLength factorArea factor
m → ft3.2808410.7639
cm → in0.3937010.155000
km → mi0.6213710.386102
yd → ft39

Reading a Property Listing

Floor area is quoted differently by jurisdiction and by who is selling. Gross internal area measures inside the external walls; net internal area excludes structure, corridors and plant. The gap between them on an apartment can be 15–20%, and a listing that quotes the larger figure is not lying so much as choosing a convention.

Land is quoted in acres in the US, UK and Ireland and in hectares almost everywhere else. One hectare is about 2.47 acres; a football pitch is roughly 0.7 hectares.

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