Area converter
Convert square metres to square feet, acres to hectares, and every other area unit, with land-measure factors that are exact by definition.
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1 m² = 10.7639104167 ft²
Automatic formatting keeps up to 12 significant digits and switches to scientific notation only for numbers past 10¹⁸ or below 10⁻⁹. You can paste values with thousands separators, and fractions such as 3/4 or 1 1/2 are understood too.
ft² = m² × 10.7639104167
Your value: 1 × 10.7639104167 = 10.7639104167 ft²
| m² | ft² |
|---|---|
| 1 | 10.7639104167 |
| 2 | 21.5278208334 |
| 5 | 53.8195520835 |
| 10 | 107.639104167 |
| 20 | 215.278208334 |
| 25 | 269.097760418 |
| 50 | 538.195520835 |
| 100 | 1,076.39104167 |
| 250 | 2,690.97760418 |
| 500 | 5,381.95520835 |
| 1,000 | 10,763.9104167 |
| 10,000 | 107,639.104167 |
| ft² | m² |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.09290304 |
| 2 | 0.18580608 |
| 5 | 0.4645152 |
| 10 | 0.9290304 |
| 20 | 1.8580608 |
| 25 | 2.322576 |
| 50 | 4.645152 |
| 100 | 9.290304 |
| 250 | 23.22576 |
| 500 | 46.45152 |
| 1,000 | 92.90304 |
| 10,000 | 929.0304 |
| Unit | Symbol | Value in m² | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square metreMetric | m² | 1 m² = 1 m² | — |
| Square kilometreMetric | km² | 1 km² = 1,000,000 m² | — |
| Square centimetreMetric | cm² | 1 cm² = 0.0001 m² | — |
| Square millimetreMetric | mm² | 1 mm² = 0.000001 m² | — |
| HectareLand | ha | 1 ha = 10,000 m² | A square 100 m on each side. |
| AcreLand | ac | 1 ac = 4,046.8564224 m² | 43,560 square feet; 640 acres make a square mile. |
| Square footImperial / US | ft² | 1 ft² = 0.09290304 m² | — |
| Square inchImperial / US | in² | 1 in² = 0.00064516 m² | — |
| Square yardImperial / US | yd² | 1 yd² = 0.83612736 m² | — |
| Square mileImperial / US | mi² | 1 mi² = 2,589,988.11034 m² | — |
How to convert an area
- Enter the area in either box; both are live and convert as you type.
- Pick your units — metric, land units (hectares and acres), or imperial and US squares.
- If you have a length and a width rather than an area, multiply them first in the same unit, then convert the result. Converting each side separately and then multiplying works too, but it rounds twice.
Area factors are the square of length factors
This is the part that catches people out. One metre is 3.280839895 feet, so one square metre is 3.280839895² = 10.76391042 square feet — not 3.28. The same applies going down the scale: 1 m is 100 cm, but 1 m² is 10,000 cm², and 1 km² is a million square metres, not a thousand.
If a room measures 4 m by 5 m, that is 20 m², which is 215.28 ft². A common mistake is to convert 20 to 65.6 (the linear factor) and quote a room three times smaller than it is.
| Length factor | Area factor |
|---|---|
| 1 m = 3.280839895 ft | 1 m² = 10.76391042 ft² |
| 1 in = 2.54 cm | 1 in² = 6.4516 cm² |
| 1 yd = 3 ft | 1 yd² = 9 ft² |
| 1 mi = 1,609.344 m | 1 mi² = 2,589,988.11 m² |
Land units: acres, hectares and sections
An acre is exactly 43,560 square feet, which is 4,046.8564224 m². It is a survivor of medieval field measurement — nominally the area a team of oxen could plough in a day — and it has no tidy relationship to anything metric. A hectare, by contrast, is deliberately simple: a square 100 m on each side, so exactly 10,000 m².
The two convert as 1 hectare = 2.4710538 acres, or 1 acre = 0.40468564 hectares. For a rough field estimate, an acre is a bit smaller than a standard football pitch and a hectare is a bit larger than one. In the US survey system a square mile is called a section and contains exactly 640 acres, which is why rural American parcels so often come in 40-acre and 160-acre pieces.
Reference: sizes to calibrate against
| Thing | Metric | Imperial |
|---|---|---|
| A4 sheet of paper | 0.06237 m² | 0.6713 ft² |
| Parking space | 12.5 m² | 135 ft² |
| Average UK new-build home | 76 m² | 818 ft² |
| Average US new-build home | 216 m² | 2,325 ft² |
| Tennis court (singles) | 195.6 m² | 2,106 ft² |
| Football pitch (typical) | 7,140 m² | 1.76 acres |
| Hectare | 10,000 m² | 2.471 acres |
Buying flooring, paint or turf
Materials are sold by area, and the arithmetic is where budgets go wrong. Work out the area in whichever unit your supplier quotes, convert once, then add a waste allowance — trade practice is 5 % for a simple rectangular room, 10 % for diagonal or patterned laying, and 15 % where there are many cuts around fixtures. Paint is quoted in coverage per litre or per gallon, so convert the wall area first and divide, remembering that two coats doubles the requirement.
Questions
How many square feet are in a square metre?
10.7639 ft². The factor is the square of the linear one: 1 m = 3.28084 ft, and 3.28084² = 10.7639.
How big is an acre?
Exactly 43,560 ft², or 4,046.8564224 m² — about 0.4047 hectares. It was originally the area one ox team could plough in a day.
What is a hectare?
A square 100 m on each side, so 10,000 m². It is the standard land unit almost everywhere outside the US, and equals 2.4711 acres.
Why is a square mile 640 acres?
Because the US Public Land Survey divided land into one-square-mile sections and then into quarter-quarter sections of 40 acres each — 16 of them per section.