Converting Area Units: Square Metres, Feet, Acres and Hectares
The single most common area mistake is using a length factor. A metre is 3.28 feet, so people assume a square metre is 3.28 square feet. It is 10.76, because the factor is squared. The Area Converter does it properly.
Why squaring catches everyone
A square metre is a square one metre on each side. In feet that is 3.28 by 3.28, which is 10.76 square feet. The conversion factor for area is always the length factor multiplied by itself.
The same holds for volume, where it is cubed - a cubic metre is 35.3 cubic feet, not 3.28. If a conversion looks suspiciously small, this is almost always why, and it is the kind of error that makes a flooring order a third of what the room needs.
Acres and hectares
A hectare is a square 100 metres on a side, so 10,000 square metres. Clean, metric, easy to picture: a hectare is roughly two football pitches.
An acre is 4,840 square yards, about 4,047 square metres, and comes from the area a man with an ox could plough in a day. It is a long thin shape by origin - a furlong by a chain - which is why it is awkward to visualise. The nearest picture is about six tenths of a football pitch, or sixteen tennis courts.
So a hectare is about 2.47 acres, and an acre is about 0.4 of a hectare. Land in the UK and US is usually quoted in acres, land in the EU in hectares, and the two appear side by side in farming constantly.
Property measurements, where it matters
Square feet is the unit for property in the US, India and the UK's commercial market; square metres everywhere else in Europe. A thousand square feet is about 93 square metres, which is a useful anchor - a modest two-bedroom flat.
What varies more than the units is what gets counted. Some measurements include balconies, some include a share of common areas, some measure to the outside of the walls and others to the inside. The difference between two of those can be ten per cent, which is a bigger discrepancy than any conversion error.
Common questions
How many square feet in a square metre?
10.764. Multiply square metres by 10.76, or divide square feet by 10.76.
How do I work out the area of a room in a different unit?
Measure in whatever unit you have, calculate the area, then convert once at the end. Converting each dimension first invites a rounding error in both.
What is a square foot of flooring, really?
Buy ten per cent more than the area, more for a diagonal pattern or an awkward shape. Cuts and breakages are not optional.
Is a square yard useful?
Rarely now, outside carpet and some sports pitches. Nine square feet, if you need it.
Got an area to convert?