Area Converter
Type an area in any unit and see it in square meters, feet, yards, acres, hectares and square kilometers at once.
How area conversion works
Every area unit converts through a single base - here it is the square meter. Convert your figure to square meters first, then divide by the target unit's size. The tool does both steps live as you type. The exact factors it uses are:
- 1 square foot = 0.092903 m2 (a foot is 0.3048 m, and 0.3048 squared is 0.092903)
- 1 square yard = 0.836127 m2 (nine square feet)
- 1 acre = 4,046.86 m2 = 43,560 ft2
- 1 hectare = 10,000 m2 = 2.4711 acres
- 1 square kilometer = 1,000,000 m2 = 100 hectares
Real-world sizes to picture
Area numbers are hard to feel until you anchor them to something familiar. A hectare is close to a rugby pitch; an acre is a touch smaller than a full football pitch. The table below gives you a few reference points for property, sport and land.
| Reference | Metric | Imperial |
|---|---|---|
| Standard parking space | ~12 m2 | ~130 ft2 |
| Singles tennis court | 195.6 m2 | 2,106 ft2 |
| Basketball court (NBA) | 436 m2 | 4,700 ft2 |
| One acre | 4,047 m2 | 43,560 ft2 |
| American football field | 5,351 m2 | 1.32 acres |
| Football pitch (105 x 68 m) | 7,140 m2 | 1.76 acres |
| One hectare | 10,000 m2 | 2.47 acres |
Acres, hectares and land
For land and property, acres and hectares dominate. An acre began life as the area a team of oxen could plough in a day - one furlong long by one chain wide - which is why it is an odd 4,047 m2 rather than a round number. A hectare is deliberately tidy: a 100 m by 100 m square. When you read a listing, estate agents often quote gardens in square feet, farmland in acres, and development plots in hectares, so being able to flip between all three quickly is the whole point of a converter like this.
Where people get caught out
The classic mistake is scaling a linear conversion into an area. If a room is measured in feet and you want square meters, you cannot just multiply the length by 0.3048 - you multiply the area by 0.092903, because both dimensions shrink. Doubling a room's width and length quadruples its floor area, it does not double it. A second trap is unit shorthand: "sq ft" and "ft2" mean the same thing, but "linear feet" does not - that measures a single edge, not an area. Working with length instead? Try the length converter. Need volume for concrete or soil? The volume converter handles cubic units, and the all-in-one unit converter covers everything in one place.