Area Converter

Area is the unit where country conventions collide hardest. American real estate advertises in square feet. European real estate lists square meters. Rural land is priced in acres (US), hectares (metric world), or rai (Thailand), mu (China), or tsubo (Japan). A 'big house' in any currency is meaningless without the unit. This calculator normalizes through the square meter so you can compare a New York condo and a Tokyo apartment directly.

The acre is a medieval measure: it was the area a yoke of oxen could plow in one day, originally standardized as 1 furlong (660 ft) by 1 chain (66 ft) = 43,560 sq ft. One acre is 4,047 m² or 0.405 hectares. A hectare (10,000 m², 2.471 acres) was defined in 1795 as a convenient metric farm-plot size. Most countries that went metric dropped the acre; the US and UK kept it for land records.

The 'square mile' for US counties and the 'square kilometer' for European countries differ by a factor of 2.59. A 1-square-mile township is 2.59 km², which matters when comparing the populations of roughly-equivalent-sized regions.

Square meters to square feet: multiply by 10.764. Square feet to square meters: divide by 10.764, or multiply by 0.0929. Acres to hectares: multiply by 0.405. Acres to square meters: multiply by 4,047. For quick mental math, '100 m² ≈ 1,076 sq ft' — most American apartments are quoted with a square-foot number that's about 10.76× the metric equivalent.

For ranchland and timber: a section is 1 square mile = 640 acres = 259 hectares. A quarter-section is 160 acres, the standard US homestead grant — from which a lot of rural US property law is still described.

• Square meters
• Square kilometers
• Square centimeters
• Square feet
• Square yards
• Square miles
• Acres
• Hectares

• Linear confusion. A 10-meter square is 100 m², not 10 m². A 3-foot square is 9 sq ft. Area scales as the square of linear size.
• Square feet of what. US condos are quoted in gross square feet (interior, measured to exterior walls). Japanese apartments are quoted in tsubo (3.3 m²). French apartments use Loi Carrez (interior measured to interior walls, excluding closets < 1.8 m tall). The same 'size' is a very different usable space.
• Acres vs. hectares. A 100-acre farm is 40.5 hectares — less than half. Easy to overestimate cross-border.
• Square yards in the UK. Carpet is still sold by square yard in many UK shops; flooring specs use square meters. 1 sq yd = 0.836 m².
• Gaj, bigha, katha, mu. Indian subcontinent, Thai, and Chinese land units are not metric and are not interchangeable across regions. A bigha in Bihar is different from a bigha in Assam. Always confirm the local unit.

• Queen bed mattress: 3.25 m² (35 sq ft).
• Parking space: 15 m² (161 sq ft).
• Tennis court (singles): 195 m² (2,100 sq ft).
• Basketball court (NBA): 436.6 m² (4,700 sq ft).
• NFL football field: 5,351 m² (57,600 sq ft, 1.32 acres).
• 1 acre: 4,047 m² — about 75% of an American football field.
• Central Park: 3.41 km² (843 acres).
• Monaco: 2.02 km² (780 acres, 500 acres).
• Manhattan: 59 km² (22.8 sq mi).
• Vatican City: 0.49 km² (121 acres) — the world's smallest country.

• Apartment shopping abroad? Convert to a unit you know before comparing. 'Studio in Paris, 25 m²' = 269 sq ft — smaller than most US studios. 'New York studio, 500 sq ft' = 46 m² — a luxury by Paris standards.
• Flooring and paint use area, not volume. Paint coverage is often 400 sq ft per gallon (US) or 10 m² per liter. A 400 sq ft room takes one gallon.
• For solar panels, roof area matters more than roof length. A 20 ft × 30 ft roof has 600 sq ft = 55.7 m² of usable area.

Related: Length Converter · Volume Converter · Illuminance Converter.