Area Converter — square feet, square meters, acres, hectares & more

How it works

Area is length squared, so every area conversion factor is a length factor squared (NIST SP 811):

• 1 square foot = 0.3048² = 0.09290304 m²; 1 square yard = 9 ft²; 1 square mile = 640 acres.
• 1 acre = 43,560 square feet = 4046.8564224 m² — the classic US/imperial land unit.
• 1 hectare = 10,000 m² (a 100 m × 100 m square) ≈ 2.471 acres — the metric land unit.
• Metric area steps by powers of a hundred: 1 m² = 10,000 cm², 1 km² = 1,000,000 m².

The calculator converts your value to the base unit (the square metre) and then to the unit you want, so acre↔square-foot, hectare↔acre and square-metre↔square-foot all work through that common base.

Worked example

Converting 1 acre to square feet:

1 acre = 43,560 ft² (exactly, by definition)

In metric that acre is 4046.86 m², and 1 hectare is 10,000 ÷ 4046.8564224 ≈ 2.471 acres.

Frequently asked questions

How many square feet are in an acre?

Exactly 43,560. The acre is defined as 43,560 square feet (an area of 66 ft × 660 ft, one chain by one furlong).

How big is a hectare?

A hectare is 10,000 square meters — a square 100 meters on each side — which is about 2.471 acres or 107,639 square feet.

How do you convert square meters to square feet?

Multiply square meters by about 10.7639, since 1 square foot is 0.09290304 m². So 50 m² is roughly 538 square feet.

Why is the area factor the square of the length factor?

Because area has two dimensions of length. If 1 foot = 0.3048 m, then 1 square foot = 0.3048 × 0.3048 = 0.09290304 m² — the factor squared.

How many acres are in a square mile?

Exactly 640. A square mile is 640 acres, or about 2.59 square kilometers.

Are these conversions exact?

Yes. They derive from the exact length definitions (inch, foot, mile) squared, plus the exact acre (43,560 ft²) and hectare (10,000 m²); only the displayed result is rounded.