Hectares to Acres
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1 hectare (ha) = 2.4710538 acre (acre). Hectare (ha) is a unit of Area used in Metric system. Acre (acre) is a unit of Area used in Standard system.

Hectare: A Unit of Area

A hectare is a unit of area that is primarily used for measuring land in the metric system. It is equal to 10,000 square meters, or 0.01 square kilometer, or 2.471 acres. The symbol for hectare is ha.

Definition of the Hectare

The hectare is defined as the area of a square that has a side length of 100 meters. This is equivalent to 100 ares, where an are is a unit of area equal to 100 square meters.

The hectare is not an official unit in the International System of Units (SI), but it is accepted for use with SI units and internationally recognized by countries that use the metric system. It is also legally used in some domains related to land ownership, planning, and management, such as law, agriculture, forestry, and environmental protection.

History of the Hectare

The word hectare comes from the French word hectare, which in turn comes from the Greek word hekaton, meaning one hundred. The hectare was introduced in France in 1795 as part of the metric system, which aimed to simplify and standardize the units of measurement.

The hectare was originally intended to be a unit of area equal to one square hectometer, or one hundredth of a square kilometer. However, due to a mistake in the definition of the meter at that time, the actual area of a hectare was slightly larger than intended. This error was corrected in 1889, when the meter was redefined based on the distance between two marks on a platinum-iridium bar kept in Paris.

The hectare became widely used throughout the world for measuring large areas of land, especially in countries that adopted the metric system or had historical ties with France. However, some countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, still use other units of area, such as the acre, for some purposes.

How to Convert Hectare to Other Units

To convert a hectare to other units of area, we can use the following conversion factors:

• 1 hectare = 10,000 square meters
• 1 hectare = 0.01 square kilometer
• 1 hectare = 2.471 acres
• 1 hectare = 107,639 square feet
• 1 hectare = 11,960 square yards
• 1 hectare = 15.4 dunams (a unit used in Israel and Palestine)

To convert from other units to a hectare, we can use the inverse of these conversion factors.

For example, to convert 50 acres to hectares, we can use:

50 acres x (1 hectare / 2.471 acres) = 20.23 hectares

Where Hectare is Used

The hectare is commonly used in many countries for measuring land area, especially for real estate, agriculture, forestry, and environmental planning. It is also used by some international organizations and conventions for reporting and comparing data on land use and cover.

Some examples of uses of the hectare are:

• The average size of a farm in Canada in 2016 was 820 hectares.
• The largest country in the world by area, Russia, has an area of about 1.7 billion hectares.
• The Amazon rainforest covers about 550 million hectares in South America.
• The smallest national park in the world by area, Moyenne Island National Park in Seychelles, has an area of about 0.09 hectare.
• The largest solar power plant in the world by area, Bhadla Solar Park in India, has an area of about 14,000 hectares.

Example Conversions of Hectare to Other Units

Here are some example conversions of a hectare to other units:

• 1 hectare = 10,000 square meters
• 1 hectare = 100 ares
• 1 hectare = 0.01 square kilometer
• 1 hectare = 2.471 acres
• 1 hectare = 107,639 square feet
• 1 hectare = 11,960 square yards
• 1 hectare = 15.4 dunams

Acre: A Unit of Area

An acre is a unit of area that is commonly used for measuring land in the United States and the United Kingdom. It is equal to 43,560 square feet, or 4,840 square yards, or about 4,047 square meters, or 0.4047 hectares. The acre is defined as the area of a rectangle that has a length of one chain (66 feet) and a width of one furlong (660 feet). This is equivalent to 10 square chains, or 1/640 of a square mile.

The acre is not a standard unit in the International System of Units (SI), but it is legally recognized in some countries as a supplementary unit that can be used for trade if given as additional information and not used for land registration.

History of the Acre

The word acre comes from the Old English word aecer, which means “field” or “open land”. It is related to the Latin word ager, which also means “field”.

The acre was originally a measure of the amount of land that could be plowed by one man with a team of eight oxen in one day. This varied depending on the soil quality and the type of plow used, but it was generally around 40 rods (660 feet) long and four rods (66 feet) wide.

The acre was used as a common measure of land area in many countries in Europe and the British Isles since the Middle Ages. It was standardized by King Edward I of England in 1305 as 4,840 square yards. However, there were also different regional variants of the acre that ranged from 0.19 to 0.911 hectare.

The acre was brought to North America by the British colonists and became the standard unit of land measurement in the United States and Canada. In 1959, the international yard and pound agreement defined the international yard as exactly 0.9144 meter, which made the international acre exactly 4,046.8564224 square meters. However, the United States decided to keep using the US survey foot (and thus the US survey acre) for some purposes, which differs from the international foot by only four parts per million.

How to Convert Acre to Other Units

To convert an acre to other units of area, we can use the following conversion factors:

• 1 acre = 43,560 square feet
• 1 acre = 4,840 square yards
• 1 acre = 0.4047 hectare
• 1 acre = 4,046.8564224 square meters
• 1 acre = 0.0015625 square mile
• 1 acre = 0.4047 dunam (a unit used in Israel and Turkey)

To convert from other units to an acre, we can use the inverse of these conversion factors.

For example, to convert 10 hectares to acres, we can use:

10 hectares x (1 acre / 0.4047 hectare) = 24.71 acres

Where Acre is Used

The acre is still widely used in the United States and the United Kingdom for measuring land area, especially for real estate, agriculture, forestry, and environmental planning. It is also used in some other countries that have historical ties with Britain, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Jamaica, Ghana, Liberia, and The Bahamas.

Some examples of uses of the acre are:

• The White House in Washington DC sits on 18 acres of land.
• The average size of a farm in the United States in 2017 was 444 acres.
• Central Park in New York City covers 843 acres.
• The smallest country in the world by area, Vatican City, has an area of about 110 acres.
• The largest ranch in the world by area, King Ranch in Texas, has an area of about 825,000 acres.

Example Conversions of Acre to Other Units

Here are some example conversions of an acre to other units:

• 1 acre = 43,560 square feet
• 1 acre = 6,272,640 square inches
• 1 acre = 4,840 square yards
• 1 acre = 160 square rods
• 1 acre = 0.4047 hectare
• 1 acre = 4,046.8564224 square meters
• 1 acre = 0.0015625 square mile
• 1 acre = 0.4047 dunam
• 1 acre = 0.0016 section (a unit used in the US Public Land Survey System)
• 1 acre = 0.000247 township (another unit used in the US Public Land Survey System)