Acres, Hectares and Square Feet: A Guide to Land and Property Measurements
Whether you are looking at a house abroad, a farm for sale or a plot for a garden, area is measured in different units in different places. The United States uses square feet and acres, most other countries use square meters and hectares, and the UK mixes both. Here is how they relate.
The main units
- Square foot (ft²): 0.0929 square meters. Used for homes and offices in the US.
- Square meter (m²): 10.764 square feet. Used for homes elsewhere.
- Acre: 43,560 square feet, 4,047 square meters. Used for land in the US and UK.
- Hectare: 10,000 square meters, 2.471 acres. The standard metric land unit.
- Square mile: 640 acres, 2.59 square kilometers.
Conversion table
| m² | ft² | acres | hectares | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 m² | 1 | 10.76 | 0.000247 | 0.0001 |
| 1 ft² | 0.0929 | 1 | 0.0000230 | 0.00000929 |
| 1 acre | 4,047 | 43,560 | 1 | 0.4047 |
| 1 hectare | 10,000 | 107,639 | 2.471 | 1 |
Try the square meters to square feet, acres to hectares and hectares to acres converters to work with your own numbers.
Remember: area scales with the square
A common mistake is to convert area using the length factor. A meter is 3.28 feet, but a square meter is 3.28² = 10.76 square feet. Always use the area factor.
Making sense of sizes
- A tennis court is about 261 m² (2,808 ft²).
- An American football field including end zones is about 5,350 m² (57,600 ft²), or 1.32 acres.
- A typical international soccer pitch is about 0.7 hectares (1.8 acres).
- A typical new US single-family home is roughly 2,200 ft² (about 200 m²).
Comparing property listings across countries
Be careful when comparing floor area internationally, because countries measure it differently. Some include the walls, balconies and shared hallways (gross area), while others count only the usable floor space inside the walls (net or carpet area). A “100 m²” apartment in one country can feel smaller than a “1,076 ft²” home in another for this reason. Ask which definition the figure uses before you compare prices per square meter or per square foot.