Area Converter
Convert square metres, square feet, acres and hectares.
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The Area Converter changes a figure between six units: square metre, square kilometre, square foot, square yard, acre and hectare. It helps when a flat is advertised in square feet but the sale deed uses square metres, or when farmland appears in acres in one document and in hectares in another.
Using the converter
Type the number into Value, pick the unit it is in under From, choose the target unit under To and press Convert. The headline shows the answer in the target unit, and below it you get the same area in every other unit on the list, so one conversion also answers "and how many acres is that?" Results are rounded to six decimal places. The page opens with square metre to hectare selected.
Worked example: a 1,200 sq ft flat
Enter 1200, From square foot, To square metre. One square foot is 0.3048 m × 0.3048 m = 0.09290304 m², so:
1,200 × 0.09290304 = 111.483648 m²
The other rows show the same flat as 133.333333 square yards, 0.027548 acre, 0.011148 hectare and 0.000111 square kilometre. The square-yard figure is 1,200 ÷ 9, a recurring 133.33, because a square yard is 3 ft × 3 ft.
Conversion factors used
| Unit | In square metres |
|---|---|
| 1 square foot | 0.09290304 |
| 1 square yard | 0.83612736 |
| 1 acre | 4,046.8564224 |
| 1 hectare | 10,000 |
| 1 square kilometre | 1,000,000 |
Since the international yard was fixed at exactly 0.9144 m in 1959, the foot, yard and acre factors are exact rather than approximations. Some handy relationships follow from them: one acre is 43,560 sq ft or 4,840 sq yd, one hectare is about 2.471054 acres, and 100 hectares make one square kilometre.
Indian land units and how to handle them
Several local units are not in the menus, but some can be reached through them:
- Gaj: in north Indian plot listings a gaj is a square yard (9 sq ft), so a "200 gaj" plot converts directly as 200 square yards, which is 167.225472 m².
- Guntha: used in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana, it is one-fortieth of an acre, or 1,089 sq ft. Divide gunthas by 40 and convert the result as acres.
- Cent: common in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it is one-hundredth of an acre, or 435.6 sq ft. Divide by 100 and convert as acres.
- Bigha, biswa, kanal and marla: these vary from state to state and sometimes between districts, so there is no single factor. Take the local value from land records before converting.
Mistakes that give wrong answers
The most common slip is converting a side length and forgetting that area factors are squared. A 10 ft × 10 ft room is 100 sq ft; converting that gives 9.290304 m², not 3.048 m². If you only have the dimensions, work out the area first with the area calculator and then convert. The second trap is mixing carpet area, built-up area and super built-up area when comparing flats: a conversion changes the unit, not what was measured, so compare like with like.