Area units come in two families. Small areas — rooms, apartments, plots — are measured in square feet or square meters. Land is measured in acres or hectares. Because area is length squared, the conversion factors are the squares of the length factors: one foot is 0.3048 m, so one square foot is 0.3048² = 0.0929 m².

Conversion factors at a glance

Unit	Equals
1 square foot	0.0929 m² = 144 sq in
1 square meter	10.764 sq ft
1 acre	43 560 sq ft = 4 047 m² = 0.4047 ha
1 hectare	10 000 m² = 2.471 acres
1 square mile	640 acres = 259 ha = 2.59 km²
1 square kilometer	100 ha = 247.1 acres

Which converter do I need?

Homes and offices. Square meters to square feet when comparing listings across countries, and the reverse for rent or price per square foot. Land. Acres to hectares for farms, forestry and international reports; hectares to acres for US and UK land descriptions; square feet to acres for building lots and lawns.

Picturing the units

A square meter is a large floor tile; a square foot is a sheet of A4 paper plus a margin. A hectare is a square 100 m on a side, about 1.4 football pitches. An acre is a strip 66 by 660 feet — roughly a football field without the end zones.

Common questions

How many square feet in a square metre? 10.76. How big is an acre? 43 560 sq ft, 4 047 m², about a football field. How many acres in a hectare? 2.47. What is 100 m² in square feet? 1 076 sq ft. How many square metres is a 1 000 sq ft apartment? 93 m².