Written and fact-checked by Aadil Saif. Arithmetic independently re-verified · Last updated September 2026
Part of the India Land Unit Converter series.
Every figure was computed in exact fraction arithmetic from one anchor (1 acre = 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd = 4,046.8564224 m²), and machine-checked to confirm that each unit chain closes back to 43,560 sq ft per acre. Nothing was copied from another converter. Where sources disagree, this page shows the disagreement instead of choosing silently. Where a value could not be verified, it says so rather than supplying a plausible number.
Every value here is derived from that one starting point. Everything after it is arithmetic, and we show the arithmetic.
The harder half of this page is the traditional Indian units, bigha, biswa, katha, dhur, kanal, marla, guntha, nali, ankanam. Those are not arithmetic. A bigha in Patna is 27,225 sq ft; a bigha in Shimla is 8,712 sq ft. A dhur in Bihar is 68.0625 sq ft; a dhur in Tripura is 3.6 sq ft, a 19-fold difference behind one word. There is no national conversion for these units, because there is no national definition of them. Where that is the case, this page says so and gives you the regional values instead of a fake single answer.
Jump straight to what applies where your land is. Units in bold need a state or district before any conversion is valid.
| Your state | Units you will meet | Official record & unit it holds | Go to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh | Bigha, Biswa, Biswansi, Gaj, Acre | Khatauni / Khasra (UP Bhulekh) | Bigha · Biswa · Gaj |
| Bihar | Katha, Dhur, Decimal, Acre | Jamabandi / Khatiyan (Bihar Bhumi), acre & decimal | Katha · Dhur · Decimal |
| Jharkhand | Katha, Dhur, Decimal | Khatiyan (JharBhoomi) | Katha · Decimal |
| Rajasthan | Bigha (pucca & kachha), Biswa | Jamabandi (Apna Khata), standard bighas or acres | Bigha · Biswa |
| Madhya Pradesh | Bigha, Acre, Hectare | Khasra / B-1 (MP Bhulekh) | Bigha |
| Punjab | Kanal, Marla, Sarsahi, Killa, Murabba | Jamabandi (PLRS), kanal-marla, converted to hectares | Kanal · Marla · Killa |
| Haryana | Kanal, Marla, Sarsahi, Killa, Murabba | Jamabandi (Jamabandi.nic.in), kanal-marla | Kanal · Marla |
| Himachal Pradesh | Bigha, Biswa, Kanal, Marla | Jamabandi (HimBhoomi) | Bigha · Biswa · Kanal |
| Jammu & Kashmir / Ladakh | Kanal, Marla | Jamabandi | Kanal |
| Uttarakhand | Nali, Mutthi, Bigha | Khatauni (Devbhoomi) | Nali · Bigha |
| West Bengal | Bigha, Katha, Chatak, Shatak | Khatian / RoR (Banglarbhumi) | Katha · Chatak |
| Assam | Bigha, Katha, Lessa, Pura | Jamabandi (Dharitree), acre / sq m | Katha · Lessa · Pura |
| Tripura | Dhur (3.6 sq ft, not the Bihar dhur), Kani, Gonda | Jamabandi | Dhur |
| Odisha | Decimal, Gunth, Acre | RoR (Bhulekh Odisha) | Decimal |
| Maharashtra | Guntha, Are, Hectare, Acre | 7/12 (Mahabhulekh); hectare–are–sq m | Guntha · Ares |
| Gujarat | Vigha, Guntha, Acre | 7/12 (AnyRoR) | Bigha · Guntha |
| Karnataka | Guntha, Cent, Ankanam, Acre | RTC / Pahani (Bhoomi), acre & guntha | Guntha · Cent · Ankanam |
| Andhra Pradesh / Telangana | Cent, Ankanam, Gajam, Guntha | Adangal / 1-B (Meebhoomi, Dharani), acre, cent, hectare | Ankanam · Cent · Gajam |
| Tamil Nadu | Cent, Ground, Acre | Chitta / Patta / Adangal (e-Services) | Cent · Ground |
| Kerala | Cent, Acre | Thandaper / RoR (ReLIS) | Cent |
| Acre | Square Feet | Square Meter | Bigha (UP pucca) | Guntha | Cent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 43,560 | 4,046.8564224 | 1.6 | 40 | 100 |
| 2 | 87,120 | 8,093.7128448 | 3.2 | 80 | 200 |
| 3 | 130,680 | 12,140.5692672 | 4.8 | 120 | 300 |
| 5 | 217,800 | 20,234.282112 | 8 | 200 | 500 |
| 10 | 435,600 | 40,468.564224 | 16 | 400 | 1,000 |
| 20 | 871,200 | 80,937.128448 | 32 | 800 | 2,000 |
| 50 | 2,178,000 | 202,342.82112 | 80 | 2,000 | 5,000 |
| 100 | 4,356,000 | 404,685.64224 | 160 | 4,000 | 10,000 |
| 200 | 8,712,000 | 809,371.28448 | 320 | 8,000 | 20,000 |
| 500 | 21,780,000 | 2,023,428.2112 | 800 | 20,000 | 50,000 |
| 1,000 | 43,560,000 | 4,046,856.4224 | 1,600 | 40,000 | 100,000 |
The essentials Acre Conversion Calculator · What Is an Acre? · How Acre Is Used in India · State-by-State Context · The Conversion Formula · All Formulas at a Glance
The Four-Check Method: how to tell whether any conversion source is trustworthy
Standard and metric units (no state needed. These are the same everywhere) Square Feet · Square Yard · Square Metre · Hectare · Ares · Square Kilometre · Square Mile · Square Inch · Square Centimetre
Acre-derived units (exact fractions of an acre) Cent · Decimal · Dismil · Guntha · Perch · Killa · Murabba
Southern and western units Ankanam · Gajam · Gaj · Ground
Northern units (state or district required) Bigha · Biswa · Biswa Kacha · Kanal · Marla · Square Karam · Nali
Eastern units (state or district required) Katha · Dhur · Chatak · Lessa · Pura
Using the numbers Reading Your Land Record · Converting Land Prices, Not Just Areas · How to Calculate Land Area in Acres · How Big Is 1 Acre? · Acre vs Hectare · Acre vs Square Feet · Acre vs Bigha · Accuracy and Rounding · Reverse Conversions · Worked Examples · Before You Convert · FAQ · Quick Reference
A note on spelling. Section headings use the spellings people search with in India, Square Meter, Square Centimeter, Square Kilometer. Body text uses metre, centimetre, kilometre. Same units either way.
Convert to a specific unit: Ankanam · Ares · Bigha · Biswa · Biswa Kacha · Cent · Chatak · Decimal · Dhur · Dismil · Gaj · Gajam · Ground · Guntha · Hectare · Kanal · Katha · Killa · Lessa · Marla · Murabba · Nali · Perch · Pura · Square Centimeter · Square Feet · Square Inch · Square Karam · Square Kilometer · Square Meter · Square Mile · Square Yard
Every one of the other thirty-two units has a section on this page. Where two units are the same area their table would be identical, so the second section points at the first rather than repeating it.
Every factor is an acre's own size, 43,560 square feet, divided by the target unit's. To check any row by hand, take that number, divide, and compare.
Each one comes from a single anchor, the acre at 43,560 square feet, by exact fraction arithmetic. Where a factor recurs, the formula gives the fraction rather than a rounded decimal, because a rounded factor is a wrong instruction rather than an approximate one: the fraction is what has to be carried wherever the arithmetic must close.
| Conversion | Formula | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Acre to Ankanam | Acre × 605 | Exact · Ankanam is regional. This row is the Standard; also 1,210 |
| Acre to Ares | Acre × 40.468564224 | Exact |
| Acre to Bigha | Acre × 1.6 | Exact · Bigha is regional. This row is the UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca; also 4.8, 6.4, 2.5 and 5 more |
| Acre to Biswa | Acre × 32 | Exact · Biswa is regional. This row is the UP / Rajasthan pucca; also 50, 96, 100 |
| Acre to Biswa Kacha | Acre × 96 | Exact · Biswa Kacha is regional. This row is the Punjab / Haryana revenue; also 50 |
| Acre to Cent | Acre × 100 | Exact |
| Acre to Chatak | Acre × 968 | Exact |
| Acre to Decimal | Acre × 100 | Exact |
| Acre to Dhur | Acre × 640 | Exact · Dhur is regional. This row is the Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain); also 12,100 |
| Acre to Dismil | Acre × 100 | Exact |
| Acre to Gaj | Acre × 4,840 | Exact |
| Acre to Gajam | Acre × 4,840 | Exact |
| Acre to Ground | Acre × 18.15 | Exact |
| Acre to Guntha | Acre × 40 | Exact |
| Acre to Hectare | Acre × 0.40468564224 | Exact |
| Acre to Kanal | Acre × 8 | Exact · Kanal is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 9.68, 10.540038, 11.950617 |
| Acre to Katha | Acre × 32 | Exact · Katha is regional. This row is the Bihar state standard; also 60.5, 15.125, 25 and 2 more |
| Acre to Killa | Acre × 1 | Exact |
| Acre to Lessa | Acre × 302.5 | Exact |
| Acre to Marla | Acre × 160 | Exact · Marla is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 193.6, 210.800756, 239.012346 and 1 more |
| Acre to Murabba | Acre × 0.04 | Exact · Murabba is regional. This row is the Punjab canal colony; also 0.064 |
| Acre to Nali | Acre × 121/6 | Recurring |
| Acre to Perch | Acre × 160 | Exact |
| Acre to Pura | Acre × 0.75625 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Centimeter | Acre × 40,468,564.224 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Feet | Acre × 43,560 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Inch | Acre × 6,272,640 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Karam | Acre × 1,440 | Exact · Square Karam is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 1,742.4, 1,897.206805, 2,151.111111 |
| Acre to Square Kilometer | Acre × 0.0040468564224 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Meter | Acre × 4,046.8564224 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Mile | Acre × 0.0015625 | Exact |
| Acre to Square Yard | Acre × 4,840 | Exact |
Calculator standard used on this page: the international acre (4,046.8564224 m², based on the international yard of exactly 0.9144 m). For regional units, the calculator states which regional definition it has applied before it shows a number. If you have not selected a state for bigha, biswa, katha, dhur, kanal, marla, nali or ankanam, the result is not a usable figure. It is a default.
The most-searched acre conversions at a glance. Each has a full section further down.
| Acres | Square Feet | Square Metres | Hectares | Cent | Guntha |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 43,560 | 4,046.8564 | 0.40468564 | 100 | 40 |
| 2 | 87,120 | 8,093.7128 | 0.80937128 | 200 | 80 |
| 3 | 130,680 | 12,140.5693 | 1.21405693 | 300 | 120 |
| 5 | 217,800 | 20,234.2821 | 2.02342821 | 500 | 200 |
| 10 | 435,600 | 40,468.5642 | 4.04685642 | 1,000 | 400 |
| 20 | 871,200 | 80,937.1284 | 8.09371284 | 2,000 | 800 |
| 50 | 2,178,000 | 202,342.8211 | 20.23428211 | 5,000 | 2,000 |
| 100 | 4,356,000 | 404,685.6422 | 40.46856422 | 10,000 | 4,000 |
| 200 | 8,712,000 | 809,371.2845 | 80.93712845 | 20,000 | 8,000 |
| 500 | 21,780,000 | 2,023,428.2112 | 202.34282112 | 50,000 | 20,000 |
| 1,000 | 43,560,000 | 4,046,856.4224 | 404.68564224 | 100,000 | 40,000 |
An acre is a unit of area, the amount of surface a piece of land covers. It is not a length, a width, or a shape. This distinction sounds obvious and is the single most common source of confusion in land transactions, so it is worth stating plainly before anything else.
Area versus length. A length is measured along one dimension: 100 feet, 40 metres, 55 gaz. An area is measured across two: 100 ft × 200 ft = 20,000 square feet. The units are not interchangeable and cannot be converted into each other. "Gaj" (a yard) and "karam" (a rod of 5.5 ft) are lengths; "square gaj" and "square karam" are areas. Indian property listings routinely drop the word "square." That is how a buyer ends up comparing a 200-gaj plot with a 200-sq-yd plot without realising they are the same thing, or comparing a "5 karam frontage" with a "5 square karam plot" without realising they are nothing alike.
Where the acre comes from. The acre is a survey unit inherited from the English system, historically the area a yoke of oxen could plough in a day. Its geometric definition is a furlong by a chain: 660 ft × 66 ft = 43,560 sq ft. That is why the number 43,560 looks arbitrary. It is not a round decimal figure, it is a round surveying figure. The same chain-based logic produces the perch (16.5 ft squared = 272.25 sq ft) and the cent (1,000 square links = 1/100 acre).
The modern exact definition. Since the 1959 international yard and pound agreement, the yard is defined as exactly 0.9144 metres. That fixes the acre exactly:
Both routes give the identical figure, which is a useful arithmetic check, if a converter's square-foot and square-yard answers do not agree to that value, it is rounding somewhere it should not.
A precision point almost every conversion page gets wrong. There were historically two acres: the international acre above, and the US survey acre, based on the US survey foot of 1200/3937 m. The US survey acre is 4,046.872609874… m². The two differ by 0.0161875 m² per acre, about 162 cm², roughly one A4 sheet. That is 4 parts per million, not 2. The 2 ppm figure that circulates widely applies to the foot; area scales as the square of length, so the acre discrepancy is double it. On a 1,000-acre estate the gap is 16.19 m². This is now a historical footnote in any case: NIST deprecated the US survey foot with effect from 31 December 2022, and the international foot is the only one in current use. India has never used the US survey foot, so the acre in India is the international acre.
| Unit | 1 Acre Equals | Exact? |
|---|---|---|
| Square Feet | 43,560 | Exact by definition |
| Square Yard | 4,840 | Exact by definition |
| Square Metre | 4,046.8564224 | Exact |
| Square Inch | 6,272,640 | Exact |
| Square Centimetre | 40,468,564.224 | Exact |
| Hectare | 0.40468564224 | Exact |
| Are | 40.468564224 | Exact |
| Square Kilometre | 0.0040468564224 | Exact |
| Square Mile | 0.0015625 (= 1/640) | Exact |
| Cent | 100 | Exact by definition |
| Decimal / Dismil | 100 | Exact by definition |
| Guntha | 40 | Exact |
| Ground (Tamil Nadu) | 18.15 | Exact |
| Ankanam (72 sq ft standard) | 605 | Exact |
| Gajam / square gaj | 4,840 | Exact |
| Kanal (standard) | 8 | Exact |
| Marla (standard) | 160 | Exact |
| Perch | 160 | Exact |
| Killa | 1 | Exact by definition |
| Chatak (West Bengal) | 968 | Exact |
| Lessa (Assam) | 302.5 | Exact |
| Nali (Uttarakhand) | 20.1666… | Recurring |
| Bigha | No national value, see the regional tables | n/a |
| Biswa, Katha, Dhur | No national value, see the regional tables | n/a |
Is the acre a legal unit in India? Strictly, no: and this is a point almost no converter page makes. Under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, section 4 requires every unit of weight or measure used in India to be metric. Section 11 goes further: it prohibits quoting a quantity "otherwise than in accordance with the standard unit." The Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules, 2011 name the square metre as the unit of area and define the are and the hectare. The word "acre" appears nowhere in either the Act or the Rules. We are not aware of any prosecution or departmental circular applying section 11 to land-area advertising, and the acre remains universal in practice. But the honest position is this: the acre is a customary unit in India, not a statutory one. The legally defined units are the square metre, the are and the hectare.
The acre survives in India because it sits at a convenient size for the things it is used to describe. A hectare is too coarse for a mid-sized farm; a square foot is far too fine. An acre is roughly the size a single family can work, which is why it settled into agricultural usage and stayed there.
Agricultural and farm land. This is the acre's core territory. Crop yields in India are quoted per acre (quintals per acre), input rates are quoted per acre, and government schemes with landholding thresholds are widely discussed in acres even when the underlying record is in hectares. Land-ceiling legislation, tenancy classifications and the small/marginal farmer definitions all get translated into acres in ordinary conversation.
Large residential plots and farmhouse land. Once a plot exceeds roughly half an acre, square feet stops being a useful number: "21,780 sq ft" is harder to hold in your head than "half an acre." Farmhouse belts around Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune are traded in acres and guntas.
Commercial, industrial and institutional land. Industrial plot allotments by state development corporations, SEZ and logistics park land, warehousing land, and school/hospital campus land are almost always described in acres, even where the allotment letter states hectares.
Rural land transactions. In most of rural India the acre is the working unit between buyer, seller and broker, with the local traditional unit running alongside it. A Punjab farmer speaks in killas and kanals; a Maharashtra farmer in acres and gunthas; an Andhra farmer in acres and cents.
Property records and real-estate listings. Here is where it gets messy, and where most buyer errors originate. The unit on the listing is frequently not the unit in the record. The digitised record of rights in Maharashtra (the 7/12 extract) holds area in hectares and ares. The Punjab and Haryana jamabandi holds it in kanals, marlas and sarsahis, converted to hectares. The Bihar jamabandi uses acres and decimals. The Rajasthan land-records rules record area, in the words of Rule 70 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957, "in standard bighas or acres as prevalent in the integrating unit." There is no single national unit for the record of rights, and the acre figure in an advertisement is very often a broker's conversion, not a transcription.
The traditional units did not disappear when metric units arrived; they went on being used for the same reason people still say "a lakh" rather than "one hundred thousand." Buyers therefore meet the acre next to:
Bigha, Biswa, Biswansi: the north Indian revenue chain (UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, MP, Haryana, Himachal, Uttarakhand) Katha, Dhur, Dhurki: Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam Chatak: West Bengal, as the sub-unit of the katha Lessa (Lecha): Assam, as the sub-unit of the katha Kanal, Marla, Sarsahi, Killa, Murabba, Square Karam, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir Guntha (Gunta): Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh Cent, Ground, Ankanam, Gajam: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana Decimal / Dismil / Shatak, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Tripura, eastern UP Nali, Mutthi: Uttarakhand hills Pura: Assam and parts of the North East, for large holdings
Two of these deserve flagging immediately because they are pure vocabulary differences rather than different quantities: cent and decimal are the same unit (both are exactly 1/100 acre = 435.6 sq ft), and the standard marla and the perch are the same unit (both are exactly 272.25 sq ft = 1/160 acre; the Majha, Doaba and Kapurthala marla are smaller). A Kerala buyer's "cent" and a Bihar buyer's "decimal" describe identical areas. A Ludhiana marla and a Colombo perch are identical areas. Neither fact is obvious from the words.
A yes/no table of "does this state use acres" would be misleading, because every state uses acres in speech and almost no state uses them in its digitised record. The real variable is which traditional unit runs alongside the acre, and which unit the official record actually holds.
Where the acre is the working unit in conversation: effectively everywhere, for agricultural and large land.
Where metric units dominate the official record: Maharashtra (7/12 extracts in hectare–are–square metre), Gujarat, and increasingly all states as the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme converts legacy records. Punjab's own Land Records Manual, Chapter 9, notes that areas "have been correctly converted into hectares from the local standard."
Where a traditional unit is the statutory unit of record: Rajasthan, uniquely and explicitly. Rule 70 of the 1957 Land Records Rules records area in "standard bighas or acres as prevalent in the integrating unit," with the differing bigha measures of the former princely states set out in an appendix to the Rules.
| State/Region | Where the acre is used | Other common units | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh | Agricultural land, large plots | Bigha, Biswa, Biswansi | The biswa is constant at 1,361.25 sq ft across UP; what changes is how many biswa make a "bigha" (20 in the east, 6⅔ or 5 in the west). Ask how many biswa, not how many square feet. |
| Bihar | Widely, alongside decimal | Katha, Dhur, Dhurki, Decimal | Bihar's own revenue glossary states the katha "varies from region to region in Bihar", 1,361.25 sq ft in Patna, but not in Chhapra, Hajipur or Bettiah. |
| Rajasthan | Alongside bigha | Bigha (pucca and kachha), Biswa | The only state whose rules concede multiple bighas. Pucca bigha 27,225 sq ft (Jaipur belt); kachha bigha 17,424 sq ft (Marwar). |
| Madhya Pradesh | Agricultural | Bigha | The 12,000 sq ft MP bigha is widely repeated but has no sub-unit chain and no primary source. Treat with caution. |
| Punjab | Killa = acre in daily speech | Kanal, Marla, Sarsahi, Killa, Murabba, Square Karam | Four different karam lengths are in use by belt (Malwa/urban 66 in, Majha 60 in, Doaba 57.5 in, Kapurthala 54 in), which changes the marla and kanal. Punjab has no statutory bigha, but its customary bigha resolves cleanly to 4 kanal = ½ acre. |
| Haryana | Killa = acre | Kanal, Marla, Sarsahi | Jamabandi is in kanal-marla. Circulating "Haryana bigha" figures (21,780 / 27,225 / 8,712 sq ft) conflict irreconcilably; do not rely on any of them. |
| Himachal Pradesh | Agricultural | Bigha, Biswa, Kanal, Marla | HP's bigha is a clean 1/5 acre (8,712 sq ft) and its biswa is exactly 435.6 sq ft = one decimal. Kangra, Una and Hamirpur use the 57.5-inch karam, so the marla there is ~206.6 sq ft, not 272.25. |
| Jammu & Kashmir / Ladakh | Rarely; kanal dominates | Kanal, Marla | 1 kanal = 5,445 sq ft, 8 kanal = 1 acre ("1 ghuman"). |
| Uttarakhand | Plains and Terai | Nali, Mutthi, Bigha | The nali (2,160 sq ft) is stable across sources; the hill bigha it maps to is not. Quote hill land in nali. |
| West Bengal | Agricultural | Bigha, Katha, Chatak, Shatak | Bigha 14,400 sq ft, katha 720 sq ft, chatak 45 sq ft, a clean, well-attested chain. Kolkata trade sometimes halves the katha to 360 sq ft. |
| Assam | Official records and larger land | Bigha, Katha, Lessa, Pura | Bigha 14,400 sq ft but katha 2,880 sq ft (5 katha per bigha, not 20). Cachar/Barak Valley differs. |
| Jharkhand | Agricultural | Katha, Dhur, Decimal | Ranchi katha 720 sq ft. A circulating 27,211 sq ft "Jharkhand bigha" has no derivable chain. |
| Odisha | Agricultural | Decimal, Gunth | Decimal is the working small unit. |
| Tripura | Agricultural | Kani, Gonda, Kara, Dhur | The Tripura dhur is 3.6 sq ft, roughly 1/19th of the Bihar dhur. The most dangerous single conversion in India. |
| Maharashtra | Universal in speech | Guntha, Are, Hectare | 7/12 extracts are in hectare–are–sq m. 1 are (1,076.39 sq ft) is not 1 guntha (1,089 sq ft), see the warning below. |
| Gujarat | Agricultural | Vigha, Guntha | Vigha ≈ 17,424 sq ft = 16 guntha = 2/5 acre. |
| Karnataka | Universal | Guntha, Cent, Ankanam | RTC/pahani areas are stated in acres and guntas. Ankanam appears around Bengaluru and Anekal. |
| Andhra Pradesh / Telangana | Universal for agricultural land | Cent, Ankanam, Gajam, Guntha | Registration is in square yards/square metres. Ankanam is a market unit only; and it is not one size (72 sq ft standard, 36 sq ft around Tirupati). |
| Tamil Nadu | Agricultural | Cent, Ground, Kuzhi, Kani | Ground = 2,400 sq ft, 18.15 per acre. Cent = 435.6 sq ft, 100 per acre. |
| Kerala | Agricultural and plantation | Cent | Cent is dominant for residential plots; 1 cent = 435.6 sq ft = 1,000 square links. |
Important: Traditional Indian land units vary by state, by district and sometimes by tehsil. Do not treat any single regional conversion as an India-wide value. Where this page gives a number for a traditional unit, it names the region that number belongs to. Where the sources conflict, it says so rather than picking one and presenting it as settled.
The costliest single mistake in Maharashtra: a guntha is not an are. 1 guntha = 1,089 sq ft; 1 are = 1,076.391 sq ft. The guntha is 1.17% larger. Because 7/12 extracts print area as hectare–are–square metre, and the "R" column is routinely read as gunthas, a 40-are holding is read as 40 gunthas (1 acre) when it is actually 0.988 acre. Over 1 hectare the error compounds: 1 hectare = 98.84 gunthas, not 100.
Every acre conversion on this page is one of two operations.
Converted Value = Number of Acres × Conversion Factor
Number of Acres = Converted Value ÷ Conversion Factor
The conversion factor is always "how many of the target unit fit inside one acre." Because an acre is 43,560 sq ft, the factor for any unit whose size in square feet you know is simply:
Conversion Factor = 43,560 ÷ (size of target unit in square feet)
That one line generates every factor in this article. A guntha is 1,089 sq ft, so 43,560 ÷ 1,089 = 40 gunthas per acre. A cent is 435.6 sq ft, so 43,560 ÷ 435.6 = 100 cents per acre. A Bihar dhur is 68.0625 sq ft, so 43,560 ÷ 68.0625 = 640 dhur per acre.
These three words are used loosely by most converters. They are not the same thing.
Exact conversion. The result is a finite decimal that is mathematically complete. 1 acre = 43,560 sq ft exactly. 1 acre = 4,046.8564224 m² exactly. 1 acre = 100 cents exactly. Nothing is lost.
Rounded conversion. The exact value is finite but you have truncated it for readability. 4,046.86 m² is a rounded form of 4,046.8564224 m². The lost quantity is real: over 100 acres, rounding the square-metre factor to two decimals shifts the answer by 0.36 m².
Approximate conversion. The exact value does not terminate, so any decimal you write is necessarily incomplete. 1 acre = 20.1666… nali; 1 hectare = 2.4710538146716534… acres. These are recurring or irrational-looking values and the "…" is not decoration.
Which conversions on this page are exact, and which are not. Most are exact, and that is not a coincidence. The traditional Indian units were mostly built from chains, rods and gaz, the same survey primitives the acre came from, so they divide the acre cleanly. The exceptions are worth knowing:
| Conversion | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Acre → sq ft, sq yd, sq in, sq cm, sq m, hectare, are, sq km, sq mile | Exact | All terminate |
| Acre → cent, decimal, dismil, guntha, ground, gajam, perch, marla, kanal, killa, chatak, lessa, sq karam, ankanam | Exact | All divide 43,560 cleanly |
| Acre → dhur (Bihar), katha (Bihar/WB/Assam), biswa, biswansi, murabba, pura | Exact | |
| Acre → nali | Recurring | 20.16666… (= 121/6) |
| Acre → marla/kanal/sq karam in the Doaba and Kapurthala systems | Recurring | 210.800756… marla, etc. |
| Hectare → acre | Non-terminating | 2.4710538146716534… |
A converter that shows "1 acre = 20.17 nali" without a qualifier is rounding a recurring value; on 50 acres that rounding produces 1,008.50 instead of 1,008.33 nali, a difference of about 360 sq ft.
Most Indian land-unit conversions you find online are wrong in one of four specific ways, and all four are detectable without knowing the correct answer in advance. Run any source, including this one, through these four checks.
Every correct set of factors, multiplied up, must return 43,560 square feet to the acre. This is the single most powerful test available, because it needs no outside knowledge.
If a source's numbers do not close, every figure downstream of the error is also wrong.
Traditional units sit in ladders. The ladder has to be internally consistent too.
A source giving the ground as 203 m² fails here: 203 m² is 2,185.07 sq ft, but the Madras chain runs 100 kuli = 1 ground and 24 grounds = 1 kani = 57,600 sq ft, which forces the ground to 2,400 sq ft.
In every genuine north Indian revenue system, a kachha ("rough") measure is a fraction (usually a third, sometimes a quarter) of the corresponding pucca ("full") measure. A source that makes a kachha unit larger has inverted the definition.
This is exactly what has happened to "biswa kacha" on several major property portals, which define 1 bigha = 10 biswa kacha and therefore make one biswa kacha equal to two biswa. No revenue source supports it.
A conversion tool that gives you "1 acre = X bigha" without asking your state is not converting; it is guessing. The same applies to biswa, biswa kacha, katha, dhur, kanal, marla, sarsahi, square karam, nali, ankanam and pura.
Twelve units on this page require a location. Twenty do not. Any source that treats all thirty-two identically has not done the work.
| Claim in circulation | Fails | Correct value |
|---|---|---|
| Biswa = 31.36 per acre | Check 1 | Exactly 32 |
| Gajam = 43.56 sq ft, 1,000 per acre | Check 2 | 9 sq ft, 4,840 per acre |
| Ground = 203 m² (2,185 sq ft) | Check 2 | 2,400 sq ft = 222.967 m² |
| Guntha = 120 sq yd | Check 1 | 121 sq yd (121 × 40 = 4,840 ✓) |
| UP bigha = 27,000 or 27,900 sq ft | Check 2 | 27,225 sq ft (= 20 × 1,361.25) |
| 1 biswa kacha = 2 biswa | Check 3 | Kachha is smaller; 453.75 sq ft in the Punjab/Haryana system |
| "Marla was standardised in India to 25 sq yd" | Check 4 | 30.25 sq yd in Indian revenue records; 25 sq yd is the Majha variant |
| "1 acre = 3 bigha" in Assam | Check 1 | 3.025 (3 × 14,400 = 43,200 ≠ 43,560) |
| Any bigha figure given without a state | Check 4 | Range is 1.6 to 6.4 per acre |
Apply these four checks and you no longer need to trust a source. You can test it. That includes this page: every table here is built to pass Checks 1 and 2, and every unit that fails Check 4 is labelled as needing a location.
1 acre = 605 ankanam where the ankanam is the standard 72 sq ft (8 sq yd), most of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and parts of Karnataka. Around Tirupati the ankanam is 36 sq ft, giving 1,210 per acre.
Ankanam (Telugu అంకణం, Kannada ಅಂಕಣ) is not originally a land unit at all. In Kittel's Kannada–English Dictionary an ankana is "the space either between any two posts or pillars in a wall that support the roof, or between any two beams", an architectural bay, with no fixed measurement. It is the interval between temple pillars. That etymology is the whole explanation for why the land unit varies: it was never a defined area, it was a structural span that got frozen at different local sizes when it moved from buildings to plots.
It is used today as a market unit for residential plots in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (Nellore, Guntur, Vijayawada, the Rayalaseema districts), and in parts of Karnataka, notably around Anekal and south Bengaluru.
Ankanam is not a government unit. It does not appear in Dharani, Meebhoomi or IGRS records. AP and Telangana register property in square yards and square metres; the revenue Form 1-B uses acre, cent, hectare, are and square metre. Ankanam exists only in the market.
Ankanam = Acres × 605 (standard 72 sq ft ankanam)
The standard ankanam is 8 square yards = 72 square feet = 6.689 m², commonly described as a 12 ft × 6 ft bay. That gives a clean division: 4,840 ÷ 8 = 605 ankanam per acre, exactly.
Around Tirupati and parts of Chittoor, the ankanam in use is 36 sq ft, or 4 sq yd, exactly half the standard. That doubles the count per acre:
A Telugu-language property source in Tirupati puts it directly: అంకణం కొలత ఒకే విధంగా ఉండదు, the ankanam measure is not uniform, and advises checking the layout plan or the registration document. That is the correct instruction. A "600 ankanam" plot is 43,200 sq ft in Nellore and 21,600 sq ft in Tirupati.
We searched specifically for a 64 sq ft or 9 sq yd ankanam, which some converters list. No source supports it. Do not use that value.
Note also a local rule of thumb, "12.5 ankanam = 1 cent," which circulates in the Tirupati belt. It is inconsistent with both defined values (72 sq ft gives 6.05 per cent; 36 sq ft gives 12.1 per cent). It appears to be a rounding of the 36 sq ft figure, not a third definition.
Acres × 43,560.5 acres × 43,560 = 217,800 sq ft
217,800 ÷ 72 = 3,025 ankanam
The ankanam sits between the gajam and the cent in the AP/Telangana ladder, and the relationships are exact once the 72 sq ft definition is fixed:
| Relationship | Value |
|---|---|
| 1 ankanam | 8 gajam (8 sq yd) |
| 1 cent | 6.05 ankanam |
| 1 guntha | 15.125 ankanam |
| 1 ground | 33.333… ankanam |
| 1 acre | 605 ankanam |
The ankanam-to-ground relationship is the only untidy one (2,400 ÷ 72 = 33⅓), because the ground is a Tamil unit and the ankanam a Telugu one; they were never designed to interlock.
Acres = Ankanam ÷ 605 (72 sq ft ankanam)
Acres = Ankanam ÷ 1,210 (36 sq ft ankanam)
| Acre | Ankanam (Standard) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 605 |
| 2 | 1,210 |
| 3 | 1,815 |
| 5 | 3,025 |
| 10 | 6,050 |
| 20 | 12,100 |
| 50 | 30,250 |
| 100 | 60,500 |
| 200 | 121,000 |
| 500 | 302,500 |
| 1,000 | 605,000 |
Ankanam = Acre × 605 (Standard) · reverse Acre = Ankanam ÷ 605
| Acre | Ankanam (36 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,210 |
| 2 | 2,420 |
| 3 | 3,630 |
| 5 | 6,050 |
| 10 | 12,100 |
| 20 | 24,200 |
| 50 | 60,500 |
| 100 | 121,000 |
| 200 | 242,000 |
| 500 | 605,000 |
| 1,000 | 1,210,000 |
The are (symbol a) is the metric unit of area equal to a square 10 m on a side: 1 are = 100 m². It is the hectare's smaller sibling, 1 hectare = 100 ares, and it is the unit that appears in the "R" column of a Maharashtra 7/12 extract and in Indian land records generally.
Its formal standing changed recently and most references are out of date. In the SI Brochure, 9th edition (2019), the hectare was listed among the "non-SI units accepted for use with the SI" and the are was not. In version 4.01 of the SI Brochure, published on 4 June 2026, the BIPM restructured that treatment: the category of units "accepted for use with the SI" was effectively retired, and both the are and the hectare are now listed together as "historical names for decimal multiples and submultiples of SI units." So the are is not deprecated, no BIPM text says that, but the common statement "the hectare is accepted for use with the SI, the are is not" is now a superseded claim.
In India, both are legally defined. The Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules, 2011 define the are as "the area of a square with sides of length 10 metres" and the hectare as a square of 100 m sides.
Ares = Acres × 40.468564224
5 acres × 40.468564224 = 202.34282112 ares
| Acre | Are | |
|---|---|---|
| System | Imperial / customary | Metric |
| Definition | 4,840 sq yd = 4,046.8564224 m² | 100 m² exactly |
| Relative size | 1 acre = 40.47 ares | 1 are = 0.0247 acre |
| In square feet | 43,560 | 1,076.391042 |
| Legal status in India | Not defined in the Legal Metrology Act or Rules | Defined in the National Standards Rules, 2011 |
| Where you meet it | Farm sales, listings, conversation | 7/12 extracts, jamabandi conversions, official records |
The acre is roughly 40 times an are. That factor is worth memorising for reading Maharashtra records: an "H-R-sqm" entry of 1-20-00 is 1 hectare 20 ares = 120 ares ≈ 2.965 acres.
And the trap again, because it costs money: 1 are = 1,076.391 sq ft, 1 guntha = 1,089 sq ft. They differ by 1.17%. 1 hectare = 98.84 gunthas, not 100.
Acres = Ares ÷ 40.468564224 (or Ares × 0.0247105381)
| Acre | Ares |
|---|---|
| 1 | 40.468564224 |
| 2 | 80.937128448 |
| 3 | 121.405692672 |
| 5 | 202.34282112 |
| 10 | 404.68564224 |
| 20 | 809.37128448 |
| 50 | 2,023.4282112 |
| 100 | 4,046.8564224 |
| 200 | 8,093.7128448 |
| 500 | 20,234.282112 |
| 1,000 | 40,468.564224 |
Ares = Acre × 40.468564224 · reverse Acre = Ares ÷ 40.468564224
There is no single answer. 1 acre is 1.6 to 6.4 bighas depending on the state. 1.6 in Bihar and eastern UP · 2.5 in Marwar Rajasthan and Gujarat · 3.025 in West Bengal and Assam · 5 in Himachal Pradesh · 6.4 in the Uttarakhand hills. The full table is below.
There is no such thing as "the" bigha. It is the most widely used traditional land unit in northern and eastern India and the least standardised, and this is not merely a folk observation, it is a position the government itself has taken in writing.
Rule 70 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957 provides that area "will be in standard bighas or acres as prevalent in the integrating unit," and refers the reader to an appendix setting out "the different bigha measure prevalent in the various integrating states of Rajasthan." That is a statutory rule conceding that the bigha differs within a single state. The Bihar government's own revenue glossary does the same for the katha, the bigha's sub-unit: it is "approx. 1361 sq ft in Patna and around but its measurement in square feet varies from region to region in Bihar."
A 1924 Settlement Commissioner, quoted in the standard historical reference on the unit, recorded "some forty different bighas in use in various parts of the State, based on chains or rather ropes varying from 100 feet to 185 feet." Nothing since has consolidated them.
So: do not accept "1 acre = X bigha" from any source that has not asked you which state.
| State / Region | 1 bigha in sq ft | 1 bigha in m² | Bigha per acre | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh, pucca (Purvanchal, Awadh, Lucknow) | 27,225 | 2,529.29 | 1.6 | 20 biswa × 1,361.25; = 55 × 55 gaz |
| Uttar Pradesh, kachha, 6⅔ biswa (west UP) | 9,075 | 843.10 | 4.8 | ⅓ of pucca |
| Uttar Pradesh, kachha, 5 biswa (west UP) | 6,806.25 | 632.32 | 6.4 | ¼ of pucca |
| Bihar (Patna / Magadh belt) | 27,225 | 2,529.29 | 1.6 | 20 katha × 1,361.25 |
| Rajasthan, pucca (Jaipur, east Rajasthan) | 27,225 | 2,529.29 | 1.6 | 165 × 165 ft |
| Rajasthan, kachha (Marwar: Jodhpur, Barmer, Bikaner) | 17,424 | 1,618.74 | 2.5 | 132 × 132 ft |
| Himachal Pradesh | 8,712 | 809.37 | 5 | 20 biswa × 435.6 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 12,000 | 1,114.84 | 3.63 | No sub-unit chain; see caution |
| Gujarat (vigha) | 17,424 | 1,618.74 | 2.5 | 16 guntha × 1,089 |
| West Bengal | 14,400 | 1,337.80 | 3.025 | 20 katha × 720 |
| Assam | 14,400 | 1,337.80 | 3.025 | 5 katha × 2,880 = 100 lessa × 144 |
| Jharkhand (Ranchi) | 14,400 | 1,337.80 | 3.025 | 20 katha × 720 |
| Uttarakhand, hills | 6,806.25 | 632.32 | 6.4 | 5 biswa; contested, see below |
| Uttarakhand, plains/Terai | 17,424 | 1,618.74 | 2.5 | Same as Rajasthan kachha |
| Punjab | 21,780 | 2,023.43 | 2 | 4 kanal = exactly ½ acre |
| Haryana, western, kanal belt | 21,780 | 2,023.43 | 2 | Same derivation as Punjab |
| Haryana, Rohtak belt | 8,712 | 809.37 | 5 | 20 biswa of 435.6; exactly ⅕ acre |
| Haryana, Ambala belt | 8,100 | 752.51 | 5.377… | 900 sq yd |
A pattern worth seeing. Most of these are exact fractions of an acre, which is why the "bigha per acre" column is so clean: HP = exactly 1/5 acre; Rajasthan kachha and Gujarat = exactly 2/5 acre; UP/Bihar/Rajasthan pucca = exactly 5/8 acre; West Bengal and Assam = exactly 1,600 square yards. The bighas were laid out against chains and gaz, not arbitrarily.
This page will not paper over these. If a converter gives you a single confident number for the rows below, it is guessing.
Punjab. Punjab's revenue records use kanal, marla and sarsahi, and the jamabandi should be read in those units. But the bigha in Punjabi usage does have a resolvable value: 21,780 sq ft, being 4 kanal, which is exactly half an acre, 2 bigha to the acre. Other figures circulate (10,890 for 2 kanal, 9,075 for 20 old biswa of 453.75, and district karam-derived values), but the 4-kanal bigha is the one that closes against the kanal chain and against the acre. Where the record is in kanal-marla, convert from that and not from the bigha. See how the four-kanal Punjab bigha is derived.
Haryana. Three incompatible figures are in circulation: 21,780 sq ft (kanal chain), 27,225 sq ft (this appears to be the UP pucca value copied across), and 8,100–8,712 sq ft (an HP-style biswa chain). Haryana jamabandi is in kanal-marla; biswa appears only in some older records. No Haryana bigha figure should be treated as authoritative.
Uttar Pradesh. 27,225 sq ft is the principled figure (3,025 sq yd, 20 × 1,361.25). 27,000 sq ft is a trade rounding you will see constantly on portals; it understates by 225 sq ft per bigha. A 27,900 sq ft figure also circulates and is unsupported.
Madhya Pradesh. 12,000 sq ft is widely repeated but derives from no sub-unit chain and no primary source. Treat as indicative only.
Uttarakhand. 6,806.25 sq ft (5 biswa) is the mainstream figure. A locally-published alternative builds the hill bigha as 20 biswa of 405 sq ft = 8,100 sq ft, which is internally consistent but conflicts with everything else. For hill land, quote nali (2,160 sq ft), which is stable, rather than bigha, which is not.
Jharkhand. 14,400 sq ft follows from the Ranchi katha of 720. A 27,211 sq ft figure circulates with no derivable chain and looks like a corrupted 27,225.
Four reasons, in descending order of importance:
Only usable once you have chosen a region.
Uttar Pradesh pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca, 1.6 bigha per acre
Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand plains, 2.5 bigha per acre
West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand, 3.025 bigha per acre
Madhya Pradesh: 3.63 bigha per acre (indicative)
Himachal Pradesh: 5 bigha per acre
Uttar Pradesh kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills, 6.4 bigha per acre
Uttar Pradesh kachha (6⅔ biswa), 4.8 bigha per acre
Acres = Bigha × (bigha size in sq ft) ÷ 43,560
Bigha ÷ 1.6: 10 bigha = 6.25 acresBigha ÷ 2.5: 10 bigha = 4 acresBigha ÷ 3.025: 10 bigha = 3.3058 acresBigha ÷ 5: 10 bigha = 2 acresNote how far apart those answers are. Ten bigha is 6.25 acres in Patna and 2 acres in Shimla. The word alone tells you nothing.
| Acre | Bigha (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.6 |
| 2 | 3.2 |
| 3 | 4.8 |
| 5 | 8 |
| 10 | 16 |
| 20 | 32 |
| 50 | 80 |
| 100 | 160 |
| 200 | 320 |
| 500 | 800 |
| 1,000 | 1,600 |
Bigha = Acre × 1.6 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) · reverse Acre = Bigha × 0.625
| Acre | Bigha (9,075 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4.8 |
| 2 | 9.6 |
| 3 | 14.4 |
| 5 | 24 |
| 10 | 48 |
| 20 | 96 |
| 50 | 240 |
| 100 | 480 |
| 200 | 960 |
| 500 | 2,400 |
| 1,000 | 4,800 |
| Acre | Bigha (6,806.25 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 6.4 |
| 2 | 12.8 |
| 3 | 19.2 |
| 5 | 32 |
| 10 | 64 |
| 20 | 128 |
| 50 | 320 |
| 100 | 640 |
| 200 | 1,280 |
| 500 | 3,200 |
| 1,000 | 6,400 |
| Acre | Bigha (17,424 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2.5 |
| 2 | 5 |
| 3 | 7.5 |
| 5 | 12.5 |
| 10 | 25 |
| 20 | 50 |
| 50 | 125 |
| 100 | 250 |
| 200 | 500 |
| 500 | 1,250 |
| 1,000 | 2,500 |
| Acre | Bigha (12,000 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3.63 |
| 2 | 7.26 |
| 3 | 10.89 |
| 5 | 18.15 |
| 10 | 36.3 |
| 20 | 72.6 |
| 50 | 181.5 |
| 100 | 363 |
| 200 | 726 |
| 500 | 1,815 |
| 1,000 | 3,630 |
| Acre | Bigha (14,400 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3.025 |
| 2 | 6.05 |
| 3 | 9.075 |
| 5 | 15.125 |
| 10 | 30.25 |
| 20 | 60.5 |
| 50 | 151.25 |
| 100 | 302.5 |
| 200 | 605 |
| 500 | 1,512.5 |
| 1,000 | 3,025 |
| Acre | Bigha (8,712 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5 |
| 2 | 10 |
| 3 | 15 |
| 5 | 25 |
| 10 | 50 |
| 20 | 100 |
| 50 | 250 |
| 100 | 500 |
| 200 | 1,000 |
| 500 | 2,500 |
| 1,000 | 5,000 |
| Acre | Bigha (21,780 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 4 |
| 3 | 6 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 10 | 20 |
| 20 | 40 |
| 50 | 100 |
| 100 | 200 |
| 200 | 400 |
| 500 | 1,000 |
| 1,000 | 2,000 |
| Acre | Bigha (8,100 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5.377778 |
| 2 | 10.755556 |
| 3 | 16.133333 |
| 5 | 26.888889 |
| 10 | 53.777778 |
| 20 | 107.555556 |
| 50 | 268.888889 |
| 100 | 537.777778 |
| 200 | 1,075.555556 |
| 500 | 2,688.888889 |
| 1,000 | 5,377.777778 |
Biswa is the sub-unit of the bigha in the north Indian revenue chain: 20 biswa = 1 bigha, and below it 20 biswansi = 1 biswa. The chain descends from the Mughal revenue system recorded in the Ain-i-Akbari, which sets out 20 biswanseh to a biswah and 20 biswah to a beegah.
The single most useful thing to know about the UP biswa is that it does not vary. Across Uttar Pradesh the biswa is a constant 1,361.25 sq ft. What changes between eastern and western UP is not the biswa. It is how many biswa the local trade calls a "bigha" (20 in the east, 6⅔ or 5 in the west). This inverts how the unit is usually explained, and it has a practical consequence: in UP, ask for the area in biswa, not in bigha. The biswa figure is unambiguous; the bigha figure is not.
| Region | 1 biswa in sq ft | 1 biswa in m² | Biswa per acre | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan (pucca) | 1,361.25 | 126.464 | 32 | 1/20 of the 27,225 sq ft pucca bigha |
| Rajasthan (kachha, Marwar) | 871.2 | 80.937 | 50 | 1/20 of the 17,424 sq ft kachha bigha |
| Punjab / Haryana (old records) | 453.75 | 42.155 | 96 | 15 square karam × 30.25 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 435.6 | 40.469 | 100 | 1/20 of the 8,712 sq ft HP bigha; identical to one decimal/cent |
Two of these are quietly elegant. The HP biswa is exactly one cent, 435.6 sq ft, so a Himachal holding in biswa converts to Kerala cents one-for-one. And the UP biswansi (68.0625 sq ft) is exactly the Bihar dhur, because both are 1/400 of a 27,225 sq ft bigha; the two states named the same quantity differently.
Uttar Pradesh / Rajasthan pucca, 32 biswa per acre
Himachal Pradesh: 100 biswa per acre
Rajasthan kachha: 50 biswa per acre
Punjab / Haryana old records, 96 biswa per acre
At least one widely-cited source states "biswa per acre ≈ 31.36." That is wrong. 1,361.25 × 32 = 43,560 exactly, so the correct figure is exactly 32. If a converter gives you 31.36, it is propagating a mistake, and everything downstream of it will be off by 2%.
Acres = Biswa ÷ 32 (UP/Rajasthan pucca) · ÷ 100 (HP) · ÷ 50 (Rajasthan kachha) · ÷ 96 (Punjab/Haryana old)
1,361.25 square feet either way, so the Acre to Katha figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Biswa = Acre × 32 (UP / Rajasthan pucca) · reverse Acre = Biswa × 0.03125
871.2 square feet either way, so the Acre to Biswa Kacha, Rajasthan kachha reading figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
453.75 square feet either way, so the Acre to Biswa Kacha figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
435.6 square feet either way, so the Acre to Dismil figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
This unit needs a warning before it needs a number, because two mutually contradictory definitions are in circulation and one of them is almost certainly wrong.
Definition A: the revenue meaning. Kachha means "rough" or "lesser." A kachha bigha is one-third (in some districts one-quarter) of a pucca bigha. A kachha biswa is 1/20 of a kachha bigha, and is therefore smaller than a pucca biswa. In the Punjab/Haryana old system this gives 453.75 sq ft, exactly one-third of the 1,361.25 sq ft pucca biswa, and independently derivable as 15 square karam × 30.25 sq ft. In Marwar Rajasthan it gives 871.2 sq ft.
Definition B: the property-portal meaning. Several major Indian property portals define "1 bigha = 10 biswa kacha," making 1 biswa kacha = 2 biswa = 2,700 sq ft on their 27,000 sq ft bigha. This makes the kachha unit larger than the pucca unit, which inverts the meaning of the word.
Our assessment: Definition B is a propagated data error. No revenue source supports it, and it contradicts the etymology and the entire pucca/kachha logic. But it is what a UP buyer will see on the portals, so we document it rather than pretend it does not exist.
| Region | Definition used | 1 biswa kacha in sq ft | Per acre | Reliability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punjab / Haryana (old revenue) | ⅓ of pucca biswa; 15 sq karam | 453.75 | 96 | Corroborated by two independent chains |
| Rajasthan, Marwar | 1/20 of kachha bigha | 871.2 | 50 | Consistent with the kachha bigha |
| UP property portals | "1 bigha = 10 biswa kacha" | 2,700 | 16.13 | Contradicts the meaning of kachha; treat as unreliable |
Revenue definition (453.75 sq ft)
If you are looking at a UP document that uses "biswa kacha," establish from the document itself, or from the tehsil office, whether the figure is a fraction of a bigha or a multiple of a biswa before converting anything. The two readings differ by a factor of six.
| Acre | Biswa Kacha (Punjab / Haryana revenue) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 96 |
| 2 | 192 |
| 3 | 288 |
| 5 | 480 |
| 10 | 960 |
| 20 | 1,920 |
| 50 | 4,800 |
| 100 | 9,600 |
| 200 | 19,200 |
| 500 | 48,000 |
| 1,000 | 96,000 |
Biswa Kacha = Acre × 96 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition) · reverse Acre = Biswa Kacha ÷ 96
| Acre | Biswa Kacha (871.2 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 50 |
| 2 | 100 |
| 3 | 150 |
| 5 | 250 |
| 10 | 500 |
| 20 | 1,000 |
| 50 | 2,500 |
| 100 | 5,000 |
| 200 | 10,000 |
| 500 | 25,000 |
| 1,000 | 50,000 |
1 acre = 100 cents, exactly. One cent is 435.6 sq ft, defined as one-hundredth of an acre. No regional variation exists.
Cent is one of the two cleanest conversions in Indian land measurement, and one of the most used. One cent is exactly one-hundredth of an acre. That is its definition, not an approximation of one.
It is standard in Kerala (where it is the dominant unit for residential plots), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Its origin is the surveyor's chain. Gunter's chain divides into 100 links, and 100,000 square links make an acre, so 1,000 square links is exactly 1/100 acre. Kerala revenue references still state the relationship that way: "1,000 sq links = one cent."
Cent = Acres × 100
Acres = Cent ÷ 100
Exactly 100. The relationship is definitional: the cent was created as a decimal subdivision of the acre, in the same way a paisa is a decimal subdivision of a rupee. There is no regional variation and none is possible, a cent that was not 1/100 acre would not be a cent.
This makes acre↔cent the one Indian conversion you can do in your head with no risk: move the decimal point two places.
Cent is the unit of the residential plot in the south. A typical Kerala house plot is 5–15 cents (2,178–6,534 sq ft); a large one is 25 cents (10,890 sq ft, exactly a quarter acre). Agricultural land is quoted in acres and the balance in cents: "3 acres 40 cents" means 3.4 acres.
Two relationships that trip people up:
| Cent | Square Feet | Square Metres | Acres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 435.6 | 40.4686 | 0.01 |
| 2.5 | 1,089 | 101.1714 | 0.025 |
| 5 | 2,178 | 202.3428 | 0.05 |
| 10 | 4,356 | 404.6856 | 0.1 |
| 25 | 10,890 | 1,011.7141 | 0.25 |
| 50 | 21,780 | 2,023.4282 | 0.5 |
| 100 | 43,560 | 4,046.8564 | 1 |
Acres = Cent ÷ 100
435.6 square feet either way, so the Acre to Dismil figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Cent = Acre × 100 · reverse Acre = Cent × 0.01
Chatak (also chittack) is the smallest working unit of the West Bengal land ladder: 16 chatak = 1 katha, 20 katha = 1 bigha. It is used in Kolkata and across rural West Bengal for small residential parcels.
The Bengal chain closes cleanly and is corroborated by two independent sources: 45 × 16 = 720 sq ft (katha), 720 × 20 = 14,400 sq ft (bigha), 14,400 × 4 = 57,600 sq ft (cawnee) = 1.3223 acres.
Chatak = Acres × 968
| Region | Chatak definition | Relationship |
|---|---|---|
| West Bengal (standard, rural) | 45 sq ft | 16 chatak = 1 katha (720 sq ft) |
| Kolkata (some trade usage) | 45 sq ft | But the katha in trade is sometimes taken as 360 sq ft, i.e. 8 chatak |
The chatak itself is stable at 45 sq ft; the instability is in the katha above it. If a Kolkata document quotes both katha and chatak, check whether the katha is 16 chatak or 8.
Acres = Chatak ÷ 968
| Acre | Chatak |
|---|---|
| 1 | 968 |
| 2 | 1,936 |
| 3 | 2,904 |
| 5 | 4,840 |
| 10 | 9,680 |
| 20 | 19,360 |
| 50 | 48,400 |
| 100 | 96,800 |
| 200 | 193,600 |
| 500 | 484,000 |
| 1,000 | 968,000 |
Chatak = Acre × 968 · reverse Acre = Chatak ÷ 968
Decimal here is a land unit, not a mathematical decimal point. It is one-hundredth of an acre, 435.6 sq ft, and is the standard small unit in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Tripura and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The Bihar government's own revenue glossary defines it directly: "Dismil… ~435.6 sq ft, equal to 1/100 acre," and "Acre… equal to 100 decimals (43,560 sq ft)."
Decimal = Acres × 100
"3.5 decimal" in a Bihar khatiyan means an area of 3.5 × 435.6 = 1,524.6 sq ft. It does not mean "3.5 as a decimal fraction" of anything. The confusion is real enough that portals and even some drafting practice write "dismil" specifically to avoid it.
Where the unit appears in records: decimal is the standard local sub-unit in khatiyan documents in Bihar and Jharkhand, while the digitised khata/khesra fields carry hectare, are and square metre. If the two disagree, the digitised metric field is the operative one for the record; the decimal figure is the traditional expression of it.
Decimal = cent. Identical areas, different regional vocabulary. This is the single most useful cross-regional equivalence in Indian land measurement and almost no converter states it: a buyer moving from Ranchi to Kochi does not need to learn a new size, only a new word.
Acres = Decimal ÷ 100
435.6 square feet either way, so the Acre to Dismil figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Decimal = Acre × 100 · reverse Acre = Decimal × 0.01
Dhur is the sub-unit of the katha in the Bihar–Jharkhand chain: 20 dhur = 1 katha, 20 katha = 1 bigha. Below it sits the dhurki, at 20 dhurki to the dhur.
This unit carries the largest regional divergence of any land unit in India, and it is genuinely dangerous.
| Region | 1 dhur in sq ft | 1 dhur in m² | Dhur per acre | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bihar / Jharkhand | 68.0625 | 6.3232 | 640 | High, closes exactly against the 27,225 sq ft bigha |
| Tripura | 3.6 | 0.3345 | 12,100 | Reported independently by multiple sources; a genuine outlier |
| Eastern UP (Varanasi belt) | ~85.03 | ~7.90 | ~512 | Low, single weak source |
| Nepal Terai | 182.25 | 16.9316 | 239.01 | High, but outside India |
Put concretely: 50 dhur is 3,403 sq ft in Patna, 180 sq ft in Agartala, and 9,113 sq ft across the Nepal border. The same word, three areas differing by a factor of fifty. If a document says "dhur" and you do not know the state, you do not know the area, and no calculator can tell you.
The Bihar dhur of 68.0625 sq ft is numerically identical to the Uttar Pradesh biswansi. Both are exactly 1/400 of a 27,225 sq ft bigha. The two states inherited the same Mughal-era subdivision and gave it different names. A Bihar dhur figure and a UP biswansi figure can be compared directly with no conversion at all.
Acres = Dhur ÷ 640 (Bihar/Jharkhand) · Acres = Dhur ÷ 12,100 (Tripura)
| Acre | Dhur (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain)) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 640 |
| 2 | 1,280 |
| 3 | 1,920 |
| 5 | 3,200 |
| 10 | 6,400 |
| 20 | 12,800 |
| 50 | 32,000 |
| 100 | 64,000 |
| 200 | 128,000 |
| 500 | 320,000 |
| 1,000 | 640,000 |
Dhur = Acre × 640 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain)) · reverse Acre = Dhur × 0.0015625
| Acre | Dhur (3.6 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 12,100 |
| 2 | 24,200 |
| 3 | 36,300 |
| 5 | 60,500 |
| 10 | 121,000 |
| 20 | 242,000 |
| 50 | 605,000 |
| 100 | 1,210,000 |
| 200 | 2,420,000 |
| 500 | 6,050,000 |
| 1,000 | 12,100,000 |
Dismil (also decimil) is the same unit as decimal. The words are phonetic renderings of one another. 1 dismil = 435.6 sq ft = 1/100 acre.
Dismil = Acres × 100
They are the same unit and the same word. The variation is orthographic and regional:
| Form | Where used |
|---|---|
| Decimal | Official and portal usage in Bihar and Jharkhand |
| Dismil / Decimil | Colloquial and transliterated usage in Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern UP |
| Shatak (শতক) | Bengali |
| Cent | Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, AP, Telangana |
All four are 435.6 sq ft. If a listing quotes dismil and a deed quotes decimal, no conversion is required, check that both figures match, because if they don't, one of them is a transcription error, not a unit difference.
| Acre | Dismil |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 200 |
| 3 | 300 |
| 5 | 500 |
| 10 | 1,000 |
| 20 | 2,000 |
| 50 | 5,000 |
| 100 | 10,000 |
| 200 | 20,000 |
| 500 | 50,000 |
| 1,000 | 100,000 |
Dismil = Acre × 100 · reverse Acre = Dismil × 0.01
"Gaj" is the most linguistically confused term in Indian property, and the confusion is worth resolving precisely rather than glossing over.
Gaj is literally a unit of length, a yard. It descends from the Mughal gaz. When a north Indian property listing says "200 gaj plot," it means 200 square yards; the word "square" has been dropped by convention. This is a colloquialism that has hardened into a de facto standard, not a formally defined area unit, and note that the historic gaz was not 36 inches (the Akbari, Ilahi and Shahjahani gaz all differed), so the property gaj rests on the modern imperial yard, not the historical one.
For all modern property purposes: 1 square gaj = 1 square yard = 9 square feet.
Square Gaj = Acres × 4,840
| Acres | Square Gaj |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4,840 |
| 2 | 9,680 |
| 3 | 14,520 |
| 5 | 24,200 |
| 10 | 48,400 |
| 20 | 96,800 |
| 50 | 242,000 |
| 100 | 484,000 |
| Gaj (length) | Square gaj / gaj (property usage) | Square yard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Length | Area | Area |
| Value | 1 yard = 3 ft | 9 sq ft | 9 sq ft |
| Where you see it | Historical texts, cloth trade | Delhi NCR, UP, Haryana, Rajasthan listings | Formal documents |
A useful check when reading a listing: if a plot is described as "200 gaj, 30 ft × 60 ft," those two are inconsistent, 30 × 60 = 1,800 sq ft = 200 sq yd, so the "200 gaj" is right and it is a square measure. If a listing says "gaj frontage," it means running length, and no area is being stated at all.
Acres = Square Gaj ÷ 4,840
9 square feet either way, so the Acre to Square Yard figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Gaj = Acre × 4,840 · reverse Acre = Gaj ÷ 4,840
Gajam (గజం) is simply the Telugu word for yard, used in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana property exactly as gaj is used in the north. 1 gajam = 1 square yard = 9 sq ft = 0.8361 m².
Gajam = Acres × 4,840
Same unit, cognate words. Gajam is the Telugu form; gaj the Hindi/Urdu form. Both are the square yard in property use, both are 9 sq ft, and 4,840 of either make an acre. Neither has any regional variation in modern usage.
A value to disregard. At least one land-unit converter lists gajam as approximately 43.56 sq ft with 1,000 per acre. That is wrong by a factor of 4.84 and is inconsistent with every other relationship in the AP/Telangana system, with the ankanam (8 gajam), the guntha (121 gajam) and the ground (266.67 gajam), all of which are built on the 9 sq ft gajam. If a converter tells you 1,000 gajam per acre, stop using it.
| Unit | In gajam | In sq ft |
|---|---|---|
| 1 gajam | 1 | 9 |
| 1 ankanam | 8 | 72 |
| 1 cent | 48.4 | 435.6 |
| 1 guntha | 121 | 1,089 |
| 1 ground | 266.667 | 2,400 |
| 1 acre | 4,840 | 43,560 |
Acres = Gajam ÷ 4,840
9 square feet either way, so the Acre to Square Yard figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Gajam = Acre × 4,840 · reverse Acre = Gajam ÷ 4,840
1 acre = 18.15 grounds, exactly. One ground is 2,400 sq ft (60 ft × 40 ft), the standard Chennai residential plot.
Ground is the working plot unit of Chennai and Tamil Nadu urban property. 1 ground = 2,400 sq ft = 266.667 sq yd = 222.967 m², derived from a 60 ft × 40 ft plot, the standard Madras residential lot.
The strongest verification of the 2,400 sq ft figure is the closure of the old Madras chain: 100 kuli = 1 ground; 24 grounds = 1 kani (cawnie) = 57,600 sq ft, and the cawnie is independently recorded as 1.322 acres. 57,600 ÷ 43,560 = 1.32231. Two independent sources agreeing to five significant figures.
Ground = Acres × 18.15
Ground is an urban unit. It describes house plots in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tamil Nadu towns. Agricultural land in the same state is quoted in acres and cents. A "one-ground plot" is the classic 60 × 40 Chennai site; "two grounds" is 4,800 sq ft.
Two things to check before relying on a ground figure:
A widely-copied error: one major reference gives the ground as "approximately 203 m² (2,190 sq ft)." That is inconsistent with the cawnie chain and with every Tamil Nadu practitioner source. The correct metric equivalent of 2,400 sq ft is 222.967 m².
Acres = Ground ÷ 18.15
| Acre | Ground |
|---|---|
| 1 | 18.15 |
| 2 | 36.3 |
| 3 | 54.45 |
| 5 | 90.75 |
| 10 | 181.5 |
| 20 | 363 |
| 50 | 907.5 |
| 100 | 1,815 |
| 200 | 3,630 |
| 500 | 9,075 |
| 1,000 | 18,150 |
Ground = Acre × 18.15 · reverse Acre = Ground ÷ 18.15
1 acre = 40 gunthas, exactly. One guntha is 1,089 sq ft (33 ft × 33 ft). A guntha is not an are, see the warning below.
Guntha (also gunta, Telugu guṇṭa) is the standard agricultural sub-unit of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It is a 33 ft × 33 ft square. Half a surveyor's chain squared.
The value is well corroborated: the classic reference describes it as "121 square yards… 40 of which make an acre," derived from a measuring rod which squared constitutes the measure. Karnataka's RTC/pahani records state area in acres and gunthas.
We searched the accessible texts of the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code 1966 and the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964 for a definition of "guntha" and found none. Its authority is administrative, it is the unit the revenue records are kept in, rather than statutory. We could not access every copy of those Acts, so treat this as "not verified" rather than "does not exist"; but do not assume statutory backing without a section citation.
Guntha = Acres × 40
| State | Common usage | 1 acre in guntha | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maharashtra | Agricultural; universal in speech | 40 | 7/12 extracts are in hectare–are–sq m, not acre–guntha |
| Karnataka | Agricultural; appears in RTC/pahani | 40 | The RTC states acres and gunthas directly |
| Gujarat | Agricultural | 40 | 16 guntha = 1 vigha |
| Telangana / Andhra Pradesh | Agricultural | 40 | 1 guntha = 121 gajam = 2.5 cents |
This is the most expensive routine error in Maharashtra land transactions.
A 7/12 (satbara) extract records area in hectare – are – square metre. Farmers and brokers habitually read the middle "R" column as gunthas. They are not the same unit:
| Guntha | Are | |
|---|---|---|
| Square feet | 1,089 | 1,076.391042 |
| Square metres | 101.1714 | 100 |
| Per acre | 40 | 40.468564 |
| Per hectare | 98.842 | 100 |
The guntha is 1.17% larger than the are. Consequences:
If you are buying in Maharashtra, convert the 7/12 figure from square metres, not from the "R" column read as gunthas.
Acres = Guntha ÷ 40
| Acre | Guntha |
|---|---|
| 1 | 40 |
| 2 | 80 |
| 3 | 120 |
| 5 | 200 |
| 10 | 400 |
| 20 | 800 |
| 50 | 2,000 |
| 100 | 4,000 |
| 200 | 8,000 |
| 500 | 20,000 |
| 1,000 | 40,000 |
Guntha = Acre × 40 · reverse Acre = Guntha × 0.025
1 acre = 0.40468564224 hectare (commonly shown as 0.4047 ha). Going the other way, 1 hectare = 2.4710538 acres, not 2.5.
The hectare is the metric land unit, a square 100 m on a side, 10,000 m², 100 ares. It is the unit of Indian agricultural statistics, of state land records after metrication, and of most government scheme thresholds.
That asymmetry is worth noticing. Acre → hectare is exact; hectare → acre never terminates. Most converters round it to 2.4711 and never say so. Over 1,000 hectares, using 2.4711 instead of the true value overstates by about 0.019 acre. Small, but it is the reason two "correct" calculators can disagree in the fifth decimal.
Hectares = Acres × 0.40468564224
Acres = Hectares × 2.4710538146716534…
| Feature | Acre | Hectare |
|---|---|---|
| System | Customary / imperial | Metric (SI-compatible) |
| Exact size | 4,046.8564224 m² | 10,000 m² exactly |
| Which is larger | n/a | Hectare, by ~2.47× |
| In square feet | 43,560 | 107,639.1042 |
| Legal status in India | Not named in the Legal Metrology Act or Rules | Defined in the National Standards Rules, 2011 |
| Where you meet it | Farm sales, brokers, conversation | Land records, agricultural statistics, scheme thresholds, court orders |
A hectare is not "about two and a half acres" for accounting purposes. It is 2.4711 acres. On a 100-hectare block, treating it as 2.5 gives 250 acres against a true 247.11, an overstatement of nearly 2.9 acres.
Where you actually meet the hectare in India. Maharashtra 7/12 extracts (hectare–are–sq m); Punjab jamabandi conversions (the Punjab Land Records Manual states areas "have been correctly converted into hectares from the local standard"); Gujarat 7/12; and almost all digitised records under the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme. If a broker quotes acres and the record shows hectares, the record is the document that matters.
Acres = Hectares ÷ 0.40468564224
| Hectares | Acres |
|---|---|
| 0.1 | 0.2471054 |
| 0.5 | 1.2355269 |
| 1 | 2.4710538 |
| 2 | 4.9421076 |
| 5 | 12.3552691 |
| 10 | 24.7105381 |
| 100 | 247.1053815 |
| Acre | Hectare |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.40468564224 |
| 2 | 0.80937128448 |
| 3 | 1.21405692672 |
| 5 | 2.0234282112 |
| 10 | 4.0468564224 |
| 20 | 8.0937128448 |
| 50 | 20.234282112 |
| 100 | 40.468564224 |
| 200 | 80.937128448 |
| 500 | 202.34282112 |
| 1,000 | 404.68564224 |
Hectare = Acre × 0.40468564224 · reverse Acre = Hectare ÷ 0.40468564224
1 acre = 8 kanal in the standard 66-inch karam system used across Malwa Punjab, Haryana, J&K and most of Himachal. In Majha it is 9.68, in Doaba 10.54, in Kapurthala 11.95, because the karam differs.
Kanal is the principal land unit of the revenue records of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Unlike bigha, it appears directly in the jamabandi, and unlike bigha it has a defined chain above and below it.
The standard system, built on a karam (rod) of 66 inches:
| Unit | Contains | Square feet | Square metres | Per acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sarsahi (1 square karam) | n/a | 30.25 | 2.8103 | 1,440 |
| Marla | 9 sarsahi | 272.25 | 25.2929 | 160 |
| Kanal | 20 marla | 5,445 | 505.857 | 8 |
| Killa / acre | 8 kanal | 43,560 | 4,046.856 | 1 |
Kanal = Acres × 8
This is the part almost every conversion page misses, and it is the single most useful thing on this page for a Punjab or Himachal buyer.
The kanal is not defined as an area. It is defined as 20 marla, and a marla is 9 square karam, so the whole system floats on the length of the local karam. Four karam lengths are documented and all four are live in current practice:
| Karam | Square karam | Marla | Kanal | Marla / acre | Kanal / acre | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66 in (5.5 ft) | 30.25 sq ft | 272.25 | 5,445 | 160 | 8 | Standard: Malwa, urban Punjab, Mohali, Ludhiana, Haryana, J&K, most of HP |
| 60 in (5 ft) | 25 sq ft | 225 | 4,500 | 193.6 | 9.68 | Majha: Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Faridkot |
| 57.5 in | 22.9601 sq ft | 206.64 | 4,132.81 | 210.80 | 10.54 | Doaba: Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr; and Kangra, Una, Hamirpur in HP |
| 54 in (4.5 ft) | 20.25 sq ft | 182.25 | 3,645 | 239.01 | 11.95 | Kapurthala |
Three independent sources agree on this structure, one giving the karam lengths, one the resulting kanals (605 / 500 / 459 / 405 sq yd), one the resulting marlas (272.25 / 225 / 206.64 / 182.25 sq ft). A Himachal property firm independently reports the Kangra/Una/Hamirpur marla as "206 sq ft" and the kanal as about 4,128 sq ft, matching the 57.5-inch system to rounding, which confirms the variant is in current use and not merely historical.
Practical consequence: an 8-kanal holding is 1 acre in Ludhiana, 0.826 acre in Amritsar, 0.759 acre in Jalandhar and 0.669 acre in Kapurthala. That is a 33% spread on an identically-worded figure.
Standard 66-inch karam: 8 kanal per acre
Majha (60-inch karam): 9.68 kanal per acre
Doaba (57.5-inch karam): 10.54 kanal per acre
Kapurthala (54-inch karam): 11.95 kanal per acre
Within any one karam system the internal ratios never change: 20 marla = 1 kanal, 9 sarsahi = 1 marla, and 8 kanal = 1 killa. What changes across belts is the absolute size, not the ratios. So a jamabandi entry of "2 kanal 10 marla" always means 2.5 kanal. You can do the internal arithmetic safely without knowing the belt. You only need the belt to convert to acres, square feet or hectares.
Acres = Kanal ÷ 8 (standard) · ÷ 9.68 (Majha) · ÷ 10.54 (Doaba) · ÷ 11.95 (Kapurthala)
| Acre | Kanal (Standard (66-inch karam)) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 8 |
| 2 | 16 |
| 3 | 24 |
| 5 | 40 |
| 10 | 80 |
| 20 | 160 |
| 50 | 400 |
| 100 | 800 |
| 200 | 1,600 |
| 500 | 4,000 |
| 1,000 | 8,000 |
Kanal = Acre × 8 (Standard (66-inch karam)) · reverse Acre = Kanal × 0.125
| Acre | Kanal (4,500 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 9.68 |
| 2 | 19.36 |
| 3 | 29.04 |
| 5 | 48.4 |
| 10 | 96.8 |
| 20 | 193.6 |
| 50 | 484 |
| 100 | 968 |
| 200 | 1,936 |
| 500 | 4,840 |
| 1,000 | 9,680 |
| Acre | Kanal (4,132.8125 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 10.540038 |
| 2 | 21.080076 |
| 3 | 31.620113 |
| 5 | 52.700189 |
| 10 | 105.400378 |
| 20 | 210.800756 |
| 50 | 527.00189 |
| 100 | 1,054.003781 |
| 200 | 2,108.007561 |
| 500 | 5,270.018904 |
| 1,000 | 10,540.037807 |
| Acre | Kanal (3,645 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 11.950617 |
| 2 | 23.901235 |
| 3 | 35.851852 |
| 5 | 59.753086 |
| 10 | 119.506173 |
| 20 | 239.012346 |
| 50 | 597.530864 |
| 100 | 1,195.061728 |
| 200 | 2,390.123457 |
| 500 | 5,975.308642 |
| 1,000 | 11,950.617284 |
The katha has no national value. 1 acre = 32 katha in Bihar (Patna standard) · 60.5 in West Bengal and Jharkhand · 15.125 in Assam. Bihar's own revenue glossary states the katha varies within Bihar.
Katha (also kattha) is the mid-level unit of the eastern chain, below the bigha, above the dhur or chatak. Like the bigha, it has no single value, and unlike most units its variation is acknowledged in an official government document.
The Bihar government's revenue glossary states that katha is "approx. 1361 sq ft in Patna and around but its measurement in square feet varies from region to region in Bihar." A state revenue department saying in a citizen-facing document that its own unit varies within the state is about as authoritative as this subject gets.
| Region | 1 katha in sq ft | 1 katha in m² | Katha per acre | Chain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bihar, Patna, Arrah (state standard) | 1,361.25 | 126.464 | 32 | 20 dhur; 20 katha = 1 bigha |
| Bihar, Chhapra (Saran) | 1,742.4 | 161.87 | 25 | = 4 decimal |
| Bihar, Hajipur (Vaishali) | 1,901.25 | 176.63 | 22.91 | n/a |
| Bihar, Bettiah (West Champaran) | 3,267 | 303.51 | 13.33 | = 7.5 decimal |
| West Bengal (standard, rural) | 720 | 66.890 | 60.5 | 16 chatak; 20 katha = 1 bigha |
| West Bengal, Kolkata trade usage | 360 | 33.445 | 121 | Weakly attested |
| Assam | 2,880 | 267.561 | 15.125 | 20 lessa; 5 katha = 1 bigha |
| Assam, Cachar / Barak Valley | 720 | 66.890 | 60.5 | Differs from the rest of the state |
| Jharkhand (Ranchi) | 720 | 66.890 | 60.5 | 20 katha = 1 bigha |
Two structural reasons on top of the general bigha problem:
Assam versus Bengal, stated plainly: 10 katha is 28,800 sq ft in Guwahati and 7,200 sq ft in rural Bengal. Four times the land, same word.
Bihar (Patna standard, 1,361.25 sq ft), 32 katha per acre
West Bengal / Jharkhand (720 sq ft), 60.5 katha per acre
Assam (2,880 sq ft): 15.125 katha per acre
A note on Madhya Pradesh: no reliable katha value exists for MP, and the standard reference on the unit has no MP entry. We found none, so we give none.
Acres = Katha ÷ 32 (Bihar) · ÷ 60.5 (WB/Jharkhand) · ÷ 15.125 (Assam)
| Acre | Katha (Bihar state standard) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 32 |
| 2 | 64 |
| 3 | 96 |
| 5 | 160 |
| 10 | 320 |
| 20 | 640 |
| 50 | 1,600 |
| 100 | 3,200 |
| 200 | 6,400 |
| 500 | 16,000 |
| 1,000 | 32,000 |
Katha = Acre × 32 (Bihar state standard) · reverse Acre = Katha × 0.03125
| Acre | Katha (720 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 60.5 |
| 2 | 121 |
| 3 | 181.5 |
| 5 | 302.5 |
| 10 | 605 |
| 20 | 1,210 |
| 50 | 3,025 |
| 100 | 6,050 |
| 200 | 12,100 |
| 500 | 30,250 |
| 1,000 | 60,500 |
| Acre | Katha (2,880 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 15.125 |
| 2 | 30.25 |
| 3 | 45.375 |
| 5 | 75.625 |
| 10 | 151.25 |
| 20 | 302.5 |
| 50 | 756.25 |
| 100 | 1,512.5 |
| 200 | 3,025 |
| 500 | 7,562.5 |
| 1,000 | 15,125 |
| Acre | Katha (1,742.4 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 25 |
| 2 | 50 |
| 3 | 75 |
| 5 | 125 |
| 10 | 250 |
| 20 | 500 |
| 50 | 1,250 |
| 100 | 2,500 |
| 200 | 5,000 |
| 500 | 12,500 |
| 1,000 | 25,000 |
| Acre | Katha (1,901.25 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 22.911243 |
| 2 | 45.822485 |
| 3 | 68.733728 |
| 5 | 114.556213 |
| 10 | 229.112426 |
| 20 | 458.224852 |
| 50 | 1,145.56213 |
| 100 | 2,291.12426 |
| 200 | 4,582.248521 |
| 500 | 11,455.621302 |
| 1,000 | 22,911.242604 |
| Acre | Katha (3,267 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 13.333333 |
| 2 | 26.666667 |
| 3 | 40 |
| 5 | 66.666667 |
| 10 | 133.333333 |
| 20 | 266.666667 |
| 50 | 666.666667 |
| 100 | 1,333.333333 |
| 200 | 2,666.666667 |
| 500 | 6,666.666667 |
| 1,000 | 13,333.333333 |
Killa (kila) is not a conversion at all in the usual sense: 1 killa = 1 acre, exactly. It is the Punjab and Haryana word for the acre, and it is what farmers there actually say.
The word comes from the rectangular survey plot of the late-19th and early-20th-century Punjab canal colonies, where land was allotted to settlers in standard blocks. In the surviving rectangular layout the block (murabba) measured 1,100 ft × 990 ft = exactly 25 acres, and each of its 25 killas measured 220 ft × 198 ft = exactly 43,560 sq ft.
The one real exception. An earlier square murabba plan measured 1,100 × 1,100 ft = 27.78 acres, and each of its 25 killas was 220 × 220 ft = 48,400 sq ft = 1.111 acres, not 1 acre. Where old records reference a square-plan murabba, the killa in them is 11% larger than an acre. This is a genuine historical variant and it is not in the general converters.
Killa is a northern term only. There is no killa in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or Telangana land vocabulary, and note the false friend: Marathi killa/qila means "fort."
1 acre = 1 killa. They are one area, 43,560 square feet, under two words, so any quantity of one is the same quantity of the other and there is no table to give. What separates them is which record and which part of the country uses the word.
Lessa (also lecha) is the smallest unit of the Assam chain: 20 lessa = 1 katha, 5 katha = 1 bigha.
Assam's official land records use acres or square metres; bigha, katha and lessa are private sale-and-purchase vocabulary rather than record fields.
One open question worth flagging honestly: lower Assam and the Cachar/Barak Valley use a 720 sq ft katha rather than the 2,880 sq ft katha. If the 20-lessa-per-katha rule holds there, the lessa would be 36 sq ft, but no source states a Cachar lessa value, so we do not compute one. Verify locally.
Also worth correcting: "1 acre = 3 bigha" in Assam is a rounding widely repeated. The exact figure is 3.025 bigha per acre. On 50 acres the rounding loses 1.25 bigha, about 18,000 sq ft.
Acres = Lessa ÷ 302.5
| Acre | Lessa |
|---|---|
| 1 | 302.5 |
| 2 | 605 |
| 3 | 907.5 |
| 5 | 1,512.5 |
| 10 | 3,025 |
| 20 | 6,050 |
| 50 | 15,125 |
| 100 | 30,250 |
| 200 | 60,500 |
| 500 | 151,250 |
| 1,000 | 302,500 |
Lessa = Acre × 302.5 · reverse Acre = Lessa ÷ 302.5
1 acre = 160 marla in the standard system, where one marla is 272.25 sq ft. That is also exactly one square perch. In the Majha, Doaba and Kapurthala belts the count is 193.6, 210.80 and 239.01.
Marla is the small unit of the Punjab–Haryana–Himachal–J&K revenue system: 20 marla = 1 kanal, 9 sarsahi (square karam) = 1 marla.
In the standard 66-inch karam system:
The standard marla is exactly one square perch. A perch (square rod, square pole) is 16.5 ft squared = 272.25 sq ft, and 160 perch make an acre, identical in both value and count. The Punjab marla and the imperial perch are the same unit under two names, one arriving through Mughal-era revenue practice and one through English surveying, both landing on the same rod length. A Ludhiana marla and a Colombo perch describe the same area.
| Belt | Karam | 1 marla in sq ft | 1 marla in m² | Marla per acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard, Malwa, urban Punjab, Ludhiana, Mohali, Haryana, J&K, most of HP | 66 in | 272.25 | 25.2929 | 160 |
| Majha, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Faridkot | 60 in | 225 | 20.9032 | 193.6 |
| Doaba, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr; HP Kangra, Una, Hamirpur | 57.5 in | 206.64 | 19.1975 | 210.80 |
| Kapurthala | 54 in | 182.25 | 16.9316 | 239.01 |
A correction to a very widely copied claim. One major reference states that "in India, the unit was standardized to 25 square yards", i.e. 225 sq ft. That is wrong as a blanket statement. Indian Punjab, Haryana and J&K revenue records and jamabandi converters use 272.25 sq ft (30.25 sq yd). The 225 sq ft marla is real but it is the Majha regional variant from the 60-inch karam, not a national standard. Many competing articles copy the error; if a converter gives you 193.6 marla per acre as the Indian figure, it has copied it too.
Standard (272.25 sq ft): 160 marla per acre
Majha (225 sq ft): 193.6 marla per acre
Doaba (206.64 sq ft): 210.80 marla per acre
Kapurthala (182.25 sq ft): 239.01 marla per acre
1 acre = 8 kanal = 160 marla = 1,440 sarsahi (standard system)
Within a belt: 1 kanal = 20 marla = 180 sarsahi. So a jamabandi entry of "1 kanal 12 marla 4 sarsahi" is 1 + 12/20 + 4/180 = 1.6222 kanal = 0.2028 acre in the standard system.
Acres = Marla ÷ 160 (standard)
272.25 square feet either way, so the Acre to Perch figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Marla = Acre × 160 (Standard (66-inch karam)) · reverse Acre = Marla × 0.00625
| Acre | Marla (225 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 193.6 |
| 2 | 387.2 |
| 3 | 580.8 |
| 5 | 968 |
| 10 | 1,936 |
| 20 | 3,872 |
| 50 | 9,680 |
| 100 | 19,360 |
| 200 | 38,720 |
| 500 | 96,800 |
| 1,000 | 193,600 |
| Acre | Marla (206.640625 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 210.800756 |
| 2 | 421.601512 |
| 3 | 632.402268 |
| 5 | 1,054.003781 |
| 10 | 2,108.007561 |
| 20 | 4,216.015123 |
| 50 | 10,540.037807 |
| 100 | 21,080.075614 |
| 200 | 42,160.151229 |
| 500 | 105,400.378072 |
| 1,000 | 210,800.756144 |
| Acre | Marla (182.25 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 239.012346 |
| 2 | 478.024691 |
| 3 | 717.037037 |
| 5 | 1,195.061728 |
| 10 | 2,390.123457 |
| 20 | 4,780.246914 |
| 50 | 11,950.617284 |
| 100 | 23,901.234568 |
| 200 | 47,802.469136 |
| 500 | 119,506.17284 |
| 1,000 | 239,012.345679 |
225 square feet either way, so the Acre to Marla, Majha belt (60-inch karam) figures apply unchanged. What differs between the two is the record each word belongs to, not the size.
Murabba (marabba, literally "square") is a large agricultural block of the Punjab and Haryana canal colonies.
Murabba = Acres ÷ 25
The murabba is almost unique among land units still in use in that it was defined by physical dimensions rather than by a specified area. It was created for the canal-colony settlements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where irrigated land was allotted to peasant settlers in standard rectangular blocks laid out on the ground.
Two layouts existed:
| Plan | Block dimensions | Block area | Killa within it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original square plan | 1,100 × 1,100 ft | 27.78 acres | 220 × 220 ft = 1.111 acres |
| Later rectangular plan | 1,100 × 990 ft | exactly 25 acres | 220 × 198 ft = exactly 1 acre |
The rectangular plan is the one that survives, which is why "1 murabba = 25 acres" and "1 killa = 1 acre" work today. In Sind, around the Sukkur Barrage, the one-acre plots were laid out differently again, 264 ft north–south by 165 ft east–west.
If you are reading a very old canal-colony record, check which plan it belongs to before assuming 25 acres.
| Acre | Murabba (Punjab canal colony) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.04 |
| 2 | 0.08 |
| 3 | 0.12 |
| 5 | 0.2 |
| 10 | 0.4 |
| 20 | 0.8 |
| 50 | 2 |
| 100 | 4 |
| 200 | 8 |
| 500 | 20 |
| 1,000 | 40 |
Murabba = Acre × 0.04 (Punjab canal colony) · reverse Acre = Murabba × 25
| Acre | Murabba (680,625 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.064 |
| 2 | 0.128 |
| 3 | 0.192 |
| 5 | 0.32 |
| 10 | 0.64 |
| 20 | 1.28 |
| 50 | 3.2 |
| 100 | 6.4 |
| 200 | 12.8 |
| 500 | 32 |
| 1,000 | 64 |
Nali is the working unit of terraced hill land in Uttarakhand, Kumaon and Garhwal. It is used more than the bigha in hill transactions, and it is considerably more reliable than the hill bigha.
| Region | Nali definition | 1 acre in nali |
|---|---|---|
| Kumaon (Almora, Nainital, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar) | 2,160 sq ft | 20.1667 |
| Garhwal (Pauri, Tehri, Chamoli, Rudraprayag) | 2,160 sq ft | 20.1667 |
The nali is stable; the bigha it maps to is not. One source gives 1 bigha = 3.15 nali (consistent with the 6,806.25 sq ft hill bigha: 6,806.25 ÷ 2,160 = 3.151). Another builds the hill bigha as 20 biswa × 405 sq ft = 8,100 sq ft, giving 3.75 nali. The nali itself is 2,160 sq ft in every source we found. For hill land, quote nali and square feet, not bigha.
Note also that this is one of the few recurring conversions on this page. A converter that shows "1 acre = 20.17 nali" is rounding; over 50 acres that produces 1,008.50 against a true 1,008.33, about 360 sq ft of drift.
Acres = Nali ÷ 20.1666… (or Nali × 6 ÷ 121)
| Acre | Nali |
|---|---|
| 1 | 20.166667 |
| 2 | 40.333333 |
| 3 | 60.5 |
| 5 | 100.833333 |
| 10 | 201.666667 |
| 20 | 403.333333 |
| 50 | 1,008.333333 |
| 100 | 2,016.666667 |
| 200 | 4,033.333333 |
| 500 | 10,083.333333 |
| 1,000 | 20,166.666667 |
Nali = Acre × 121/6 · reverse Acre = Nali × 6/121
A perch (more precisely a square perch, also called a square rod or square pole) is the square of the surveyor's rod of 16.5 feet (a quarter chain).
The relationship is exact: 16.5² = 272.25 sq ft, and 43,560 ÷ 272.25 = 160.
Where you will actually meet a perch: the perch is the standard small land unit in Sri Lanka, where it is preferred over the rood and acre in real-estate listings, and it remains a government survey unit in Jamaica.
Indian usage: we could not verify it. We found no government or authoritative source showing the perch in current Indian land records, in Kerala or elsewhere. Indian "acre to perch" calculators exist, but a calculator having a field is not evidence that the field is used. The defensible statement is that the perch survives in India as a legacy term in Anglo-Indian-era survey and title documents, and as the imperial ancestor of a unit India does use daily under another name, see below.
1 marla (standard Punjab/Haryana) = 272.25 sq ft = 1 square perch, and 160 marla = 1 acre = 160 perch. They are the same unit. A Punjab jamabandi in marla and a Sri Lankan title in perches are stating areas in an identical measure. This is the most useful thing about the perch for an Indian reader.
Acres = Perch ÷ 160
| Acre | Perch |
|---|---|
| 1 | 160 |
| 2 | 320 |
| 3 | 480 |
| 5 | 800 |
| 10 | 1,600 |
| 20 | 3,200 |
| 50 | 8,000 |
| 100 | 16,000 |
| 200 | 32,000 |
| 500 | 80,000 |
| 1,000 | 160,000 |
Perch = Acre × 160 · reverse Acre = Perch × 0.00625
Pura is the weakest-attested unit on this page and we will say so before giving any number.
The rule is consistent: 1 pura = 4 bigha. The absolute size therefore inherits whichever bigha is local, which means the pura is doubly regional. It depends on a unit that is itself undefined.
It is an informal unit for large holdings in Assam and Nagaland, and marginally West Bengal. It has no formal role in the Indian real-estate market and is confined to rural transactions and older records. No Act, rule or manual defines it, but the four-bigha ratio is stated by the Supreme Court twice, in 1961 and 1971, and by the Gauhati High Court in 1986, 2023, 2024 and 2026.
| Region | Chain | 1 pura in sq ft | 1 pura in acres | 1 acre in pura | Reliability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assam / West Bengal | 4 × 14,400 sq ft bigha = 20 katha | 57,600 | 1.3223 | 0.75625 | Best attested, use this |
| Converter default (pucca-bigha regions) | 4 × 27,225 sq ft bigha | 108,900 | 2.5 | 0.4 | A converter default, not a documented regional usage |
Note that 57,600 sq ft is exactly the old Bengal cawnee (4 bigha), and 1.3223 acres is exactly the Madras kani/cawnie. The same 4-bigha block appearing under different names in different regions.
Do not publish or rely on a pura figure without verifying the local bigha first. If you have a document quoting pura, convert it to bigha (× 4) and then apply the correct regional bigha, rather than using a pura-to-acre factor directly.
| Acre | Pura |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.75625 |
| 2 | 1.5125 |
| 3 | 2.26875 |
| 5 | 3.78125 |
| 10 | 7.5625 |
| 20 | 15.125 |
| 50 | 37.8125 |
| 100 | 75.625 |
| 200 | 151.25 |
| 500 | 378.125 |
| 1,000 | 756.25 |
Pura = Acre × 0.75625 · reverse Acre = Pura ÷ 0.75625
A direct metric conversion, useful mainly for engineering or academic work rather than property.
Square Centimetres = Acres × 40,468,564.224
Derivation: 1 acre = 4,046.8564224 m², and 1 m² = 10,000 cm².
| Acres | Square Centimetres |
|---|---|
| 1 | 40,468,564 |
| 2 | 80,937,128 |
| 3 | 121,405,693 |
| 5 | 202,342,821 |
| 10 | 404,685,642 |
| 20 | 809,371,284 |
| 50 | 2,023,428,211 |
| 100 | 4,046,856,422 |
1 acre = 4,046.8564224 m² × 10,000 = 40,468,564.224 cm²
5 acres = 5 × 40,468,564.224 = 202,342,821.12 cm²
Acres = Square Centimetres ÷ 40,468,564.224
| Acre | Square Centimeter |
|---|---|
| 1 | 40,468,564.224 |
| 2 | 80,937,128.448 |
| 3 | 121,405,692.672 |
| 5 | 202,342,821.12 |
| 10 | 404,685,642.24 |
| 20 | 809,371,284.48 |
| 50 | 2,023,428,211.2 |
| 100 | 4,046,856,422.4 |
| 200 | 8,093,712,844.8 |
| 500 | 20,234,282,112 |
| 1,000 | 40,468,564,224 |
Square Centimeter = Acre × 40,468,564.224 · reverse Acre = Square Centimeter ÷ 40,468,564.224
1 acre = 43,560 square feet. To convert, multiply the number of acres by 43,560. To go the other way, divide square feet by 43,560.
This is the conversion Indian property users need most often, because square feet is the unit that makes a plot comparable to a flat, a listing comparable to a construction estimate, and a rate per acre comparable to a rate per square foot.
Square Feet = Acres × 43,560
43,560 is exact, not rounded. It comes from the acre's geometric definition as one furlong by one chain: 660 ft × 66 ft = 43,560 sq ft. Every other figure on this page is derived from it.
| Fraction | Square Feet | Also equals |
|---|---|---|
| 1/100 acre | 435.6 | 1 cent = 1 decimal = 1 dismil |
| 1/40 acre | 1,089 | 1 guntha |
| 1/8 acre | 5,445 | 1 kanal (standard) |
| 1/4 acre | 10,890 | 25 cents; 10 gunthas |
| 1/2 acre | 21,780 | 50 cents; 20 gunthas; 4 kanal |
| 3/4 acre | 32,670 | 75 cents; 30 gunthas |
| 1 acre | 43,560 | 100 cents; 40 gunthas; 8 kanal; 1 killa |
Multiply by 43,560. For mental arithmetic: multiply by 44,000 and subtract 1%. 43,560 is exactly 99% of 44,000. So 7 acres ≈ 308,000 − 3,080 = 304,920 sq ft, which is the exact answer.
7 acres × 43,560 = 304,920 square feet
Both units survive because they answer different questions.
Square feet is the unit of the built environment. Flats, floor plates, carpet area, construction cost, rent. All are quoted per square foot. It is fine-grained enough to price a room. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 defines carpet area in section 2(k) as "the net usable floor area of an apartment, excluding the area covered by the external walls, areas under services shafts, exclusive balcony or verandah area and exclusive open terrace area, but includes the area covered by the internal partition walls." Worth noting precisely: RERA mandates the basis of sale, carpet area rather than super built-up area, but it names no unit of measurement anywhere in the Act. The common claim that RERA "requires square metres" is not supported by the text of section 2(k).
Acre is the unit of land. Beyond about half an acre the square-foot figure stops being intuitive. "2,178,000 sq ft" is a number you have to think about; "50 acres" is a picture.
The crossover in Indian listings sits around 0.25–0.5 acre. Below it, plots are advertised in square feet, square yards or cents; above it, in acres, bighas or gunthas.
Acres = Square Feet ÷ 43,560
| Square Feet | Acres |
|---|---|
| 1,000 | 0.02296 |
| 5,000 | 0.11478 |
| 10,000 | 0.22957 |
| 20,000 | 0.45914 |
| 43,560 | 1 |
| 50,000 | 1.14784 |
| 100,000 | 2.29568 |
| 500,000 | 11.47842 |
| 1,000,000 | 22.95684 |
| Acre | Square Feet |
|---|---|
| 1 | 43,560 |
| 2 | 87,120 |
| 3 | 130,680 |
| 5 | 217,800 |
| 10 | 435,600 |
| 20 | 871,200 |
| 50 | 2,178,000 |
| 100 | 4,356,000 |
| 200 | 8,712,000 |
| 500 | 21,780,000 |
| 1,000 | 43,560,000 |
Square Feet = Acre × 43,560 · reverse Acre = Square Feet ÷ 43,560
A straightforward arithmetic conversion with little property use, given concisely.
Square Inches = Acres × 6,272,640
Derivation: 1 sq ft = 144 sq in, so 43,560 × 144 = 6,272,640.
1 acre = 43,560 sq ft × 144 = 6,272,640 sq in
Acres = Square Inches ÷ 6,272,640
| Acre | Square Inch |
|---|---|
| 1 | 6,272,640 |
| 2 | 12,545,280 |
| 3 | 18,817,920 |
| 5 | 31,363,200 |
| 10 | 62,726,400 |
| 20 | 125,452,800 |
| 50 | 313,632,000 |
| 100 | 627,264,000 |
| 200 | 1,254,528,000 |
| 500 | 3,136,320,000 |
| 1,000 | 6,272,640,000 |
Square Inch = Acre × 6,272,640 · reverse Acre = Square Inch ÷ 6,272,640
A karam (also karm) is a rod used to lay out land in Punjab and Haryana. A square karam is its square, and it is the same thing as a sarsahi, the smallest unit in the jamabandi.
Because the karam length varies by belt, so does the square karam. All four values below are documented and in use.
| Belt | Karam length | 1 square karam | In m² | Square karam per acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (Malwa, urban Punjab, Ludhiana, Haryana, J&K) | 66 in (5.5 ft) | 30.25 sq ft | 2.8103 | 1,440 |
| Majha (Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Faridkot) | 60 in (5 ft) | 25 sq ft | 2.3226 | 1,742.4 |
| Doaba (Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr; HP Kangra belt) | 57.5 in | 22.9601 sq ft | 2.1331 | 1,897.21 |
| Kapurthala | 54 in (4.5 ft) | 20.25 sq ft | 1.8813 | 2,151.11 |
9 square karam = 1 marla in every system. That ratio is invariant; only the absolute size moves.
Do not treat the karam as universally 5.5 ft. Ludhiana additionally uses a gatha of 99 inches for field layout while retaining the 66-inch karam for area, so even within one district two rod lengths can be in circulation for different purposes. One published Punjab chart lists a "Rajpura/Patiala" system at 57.157 in with a marla of 226.88 sq ft; those two figures are internally inconsistent (57.157 in yields 204.2 sq ft), and we do not reproduce it.
Acres = Square Karam ÷ 1,440 (standard)
| Acre | Square Karam (Standard (66-inch karam)) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,440 |
| 2 | 2,880 |
| 3 | 4,320 |
| 5 | 7,200 |
| 10 | 14,400 |
| 20 | 28,800 |
| 50 | 72,000 |
| 100 | 144,000 |
| 200 | 288,000 |
| 500 | 720,000 |
| 1,000 | 1,440,000 |
Square Karam = Acre × 1,440 (Standard (66-inch karam)) · reverse Acre = Square Karam ÷ 1,440
| Acre | Square Karam (25 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,742.4 |
| 2 | 3,484.8 |
| 3 | 5,227.2 |
| 5 | 8,712 |
| 10 | 17,424 |
| 20 | 34,848 |
| 50 | 87,120 |
| 100 | 174,240 |
| 200 | 348,480 |
| 500 | 871,200 |
| 1,000 | 1,742,400 |
| Acre | Square Karam (22.960069 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,897.206805 |
| 2 | 3,794.413611 |
| 3 | 5,691.620416 |
| 5 | 9,486.034026 |
| 10 | 18,972.068053 |
| 20 | 37,944.136106 |
| 50 | 94,860.340265 |
| 100 | 189,720.680529 |
| 200 | 379,441.361059 |
| 500 | 948,603.402647 |
| 1,000 | 1,897,206.805293 |
| Acre | Square Karam (20.25 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2,151.111111 |
| 2 | 4,302.222222 |
| 3 | 6,453.333333 |
| 5 | 10,755.555556 |
| 10 | 21,511.111111 |
| 20 | 43,022.222222 |
| 50 | 107,555.555556 |
| 100 | 215,111.111111 |
| 200 | 430,222.222222 |
| 500 | 1,075,555.555556 |
| 1,000 | 2,151,111.111111 |
Square Kilometres = Acres × 0.0040468564224
Square Kilometres = Acres ÷ 247.105381467…
| Acres | Square Kilometres |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0040468564 |
| 2 | 0.0080937128 |
| 3 | 0.0121405693 |
| 5 | 0.0202342821 |
| 10 | 0.0404685642 |
| 20 | 0.0809371284 |
| 50 | 0.2023428211 |
| 100 | 0.4046856422 |
| 200 | 0.8093712845 |
| 500 | 2.0234282112 |
| 1,000 | 4.0468564224 |
A square kilometre is 247.105 acres, two orders of magnitude apart. The acre describes farms and estates; the square kilometre describes districts, forests, catchments and urban master plans. A 1,000-acre industrial estate is about 4.05 km²; a 100 km² development region is about 24,711 acres.
1 km² = 100 hectares = 247.105381467 acres
Acres = Square Kilometres × 247.105381467
| Acre | Square Kilometer |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0040468564224 |
| 2 | 0.0080937128448 |
| 3 | 0.0121405692672 |
| 5 | 0.020234282112 |
| 10 | 0.040468564224 |
| 20 | 0.080937128448 |
| 50 | 0.20234282112 |
| 100 | 0.40468564224 |
| 200 | 0.80937128448 |
| 500 | 2.0234282112 |
| 1,000 | 4.0468564224 |
Square Kilometer = Acre × 0.0040468564224 · reverse Acre = Square Kilometer ÷ 0.0040468564224
1 acre = 4,046.8564224 square metres, exactly, commonly displayed as 4,046.86 m². Multiply acres by 4,046.8564224.
The square metre is the SI unit of area and (under the Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules, 2011) India's legally defined unit of area. Every metric figure on this page ultimately reduces to it.
Square Metres = Acres × 4,046.8564224
The factor is exact, not rounded, and it derives from the international yard: 4,840 × 0.9144² = 4,046.8564224.
| Acres | Square Metres |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4,046.8564 |
| 2 | 8,093.7128 |
| 3 | 12,140.5693 |
| 5 | 20,234.2821 |
| 10 | 40,468.5642 |
| 20 | 80,937.1284 |
| 50 | 202,342.8211 |
| 100 | 404,685.6422 |
| 200 | 809,371.2845 |
| 500 | 2,023,428.2112 |
| 1,000 | 4,046,856.4224 |
5 acres × 4,046.8564224 = 20,234.282112 square metres
| Acre | Square Metre | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Customary land unit | SI unit of area |
| Legal status in India | Not defined in the Legal Metrology Act or Rules | The prescribed unit of area |
| Relative size | 1 acre = 4,046.8564224 m² | 1 m² = 0.000247105 acre |
| Typical use | Farms, estates, plots over ½ acre | Registration documents, records, apartment area, construction |
Why your calculator shows 4,046.86 and not 4,046.8564224. Both are correct; one is rounded. But the rounding is not free. Over 100 acres the two-decimal factor shifts the answer by 0.36 m²; over 10,000 acres, by 35.78 m². For a display value, two decimals is right. For a computation you will later multiply up, keep the full factor.
Acres = Square Metres ÷ 4,046.8564224
| Square Metres | Acres |
|---|---|
| 100 | 0.0247105 |
| 500 | 0.1235527 |
| 1,000 | 0.2471054 |
| 4,046.8564224 | 1 |
| 5,000 | 1.2355269 |
| 10,000 | 2.4710538 |
| Acre | Square Meter |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4,046.8564224 |
| 2 | 8,093.7128448 |
| 3 | 12,140.5692672 |
| 5 | 20,234.282112 |
| 10 | 40,468.564224 |
| 20 | 80,937.128448 |
| 50 | 202,342.82112 |
| 100 | 404,685.64224 |
| 200 | 809,371.28448 |
| 500 | 2,023,428.2112 |
| 1,000 | 4,046,856.4224 |
Square Meter = Acre × 4,046.8564224 · reverse Acre = Square Meter ÷ 4,046.8564224
Square Miles = Acres ÷ 640
Square Miles = Acres × 0.0015625
The relationship is definitional and exact: a square mile (a "section" in survey terminology) is exactly 640 acres.
| Acre | Square Mile | |
|---|---|---|
| Square feet | 43,560 | 27,878,400 |
| Square metres | 4,046.8564 | 2,589,988.11 |
| Hectares | 0.404686 | 258.999 |
| Km² | 0.004047 | 2.58999 |
The square mile has little Indian usage, Indian large-area statistics use square kilometres. It appears mainly in older survey documents and in international comparisons. Note it is one of the few conversions on this page that is a clean power of two: 1/640 = 0.0015625 exactly.
Acres = Square Miles × 640
| Acre | Square Mile |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0015625 |
| 2 | 0.003125 |
| 3 | 0.0046875 |
| 5 | 0.0078125 |
| 10 | 0.015625 |
| 20 | 0.03125 |
| 50 | 0.078125 |
| 100 | 0.15625 |
| 200 | 0.3125 |
| 500 | 0.78125 |
| 1,000 | 1.5625 |
Square Mile = Acre × 0.0015625 · reverse Acre = Square Mile × 640
1 acre = 4,840 square yards, which is 4,840 gaj or gajam in Indian property usage. Multiply acres by 4,840.
Square yard is, after square feet, the most useful acre conversion for Indian property, because it is the unit of the plot in the entire Hindi belt, where it travels under the name gaj.
Square Yards = Acres × 4,840
This is exact and definitional: an acre is 4,840 square yards. (Geometrically, 220 yd × 22 yd, a furlong by a chain.)
5 acres × 4,840 = 24,200 square yards
In Delhi NCR, UP, Haryana and Rajasthan, plots are advertised in gaj; in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, in gajam. Both mean square yard in property use, and both are 9 sq ft. The word "square" is dropped by convention, which is why "200 gaj" and "200 sq yd" describe the same 1,800 sq ft plot.
Standard north Indian plot sizes in the three units:
| Gaj / Sq Yd | Square Feet | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 450 | 0.01033 |
| 100 | 900 | 0.02066 |
| 200 | 1,800 | 0.04132 |
| 250 | 2,250 | 0.05165 |
| 300 | 2,700 | 0.06198 |
| 500 | 4,500 | 0.10331 |
| 1,000 | 9,000 | 0.20661 |
| 4,840 | 43,560 | 1 |
The square yard is also the hinge unit for several other conversions: 1 guntha = 121 sq yd, 1 marla/perch = 30.25 sq yd, 1 ankanam = 8 sq yd, 1 nali = 240 sq yd, 1 chatak = 5 sq yd. If you know a unit in square yards, you know it against every other unit on this page.
Acres = Square Yards ÷ 4,840
| Acre | Square Yard |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4,840 |
| 2 | 9,680 |
| 3 | 14,520 |
| 5 | 24,200 |
| 10 | 48,400 |
| 20 | 96,800 |
| 50 | 242,000 |
| 100 | 484,000 |
| 200 | 968,000 |
| 500 | 2,420,000 |
| 1,000 | 4,840,000 |
Square Yard = Acre × 4,840 · reverse Acre = Square Yard ÷ 4,840
Bringing the traditional units together makes a pattern visible that is not obvious unit by unit.
India runs three overlapping systems simultaneously, and they have never been merged:
Metrication was legally completed decades ago: the Standards of Weights and Measures Act 1956 came into force in 1958, India adopted SI, and by April 1962 other systems were formally banned. The Legal Metrology Act 2009 (in force 1 April 2011) carries that forward. None of it removed the traditional units from actual use, because land measurement is inherited through documents and conversation, not through statute.
| Unit | Common regional context | Standardised across India? | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square metre / are / hectare | Records, statistics, registration | Yes, statutory | Legal Metrology Rules 2011 |
| Square foot / square yard | Property listings, construction | Yes, by international definition | 1959 yard agreement |
| Acre | Agricultural and large land, nationwide | Yes, by international definition | 4,840 sq yd exactly |
| Cent / Decimal / Dismil / Shatak | South and east India | Yes, 1/100 acre by definition | Definitional |
| Guntha | Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, AP, TS | Yes in practice, 1,089 sq ft everywhere | No statutory definition found |
| Ground | Tamil Nadu | Yes in practice, 2,400 sq ft | Caution for old Chennai localities |
| Gajam / Gaj | AP, TS / north India | Yes, square yard | Colloquial but unambiguous |
| Killa / Murabba | Punjab, Haryana | Yes, 1 acre / 25 acres | Canal-colony survey layout |
| Chatak | West Bengal | Yes, 45 sq ft | Stable across sources |
| Lessa | Assam | Yes, 144 sq ft | Cachar unverified |
| Nali / Mutthi | Uttarakhand hills | Yes, 2,160 / 135 sq ft | Stable; the bigha above it is not |
| Ankanam | AP, TS, parts of Karnataka | No, 72 sq ft standard, 36 sq ft at Tirupati | Market unit only |
| Kanal / Marla / Sarsahi | Punjab, Haryana, HP, J&K | Convention-dependent, four karam systems | Ratios fixed, absolute size varies |
| Katha | Bihar, WB, Assam, Jharkhand | No, 720 to 3,267 sq ft | Bihar govt concedes intra-state variation |
| Dhur | Bihar, Jharkhand, Tripura | No, 3.6 to 68.06 sq ft | Largest divergence of any Indian unit |
| Biswa | UP, Rajasthan, HP, Punjab | No, 435.6 to 1,361.25 sq ft | Constant within UP; varies between states |
| Biswa Kacha | UP, Punjab, Rajasthan | No, and disputed | Two contradictory definitions in circulation |
| Bigha | Most of north and east India | No, 6,806 to 27,225 sq ft | Rajasthan's own rules concede variation |
| Pura | Assam, Nagaland | No, inherits the local bigha | No government source found |
Six distinct causes, worth separating because they call for different responses:
The first cause is legitimate. The next four are fixable. The sixth is the one that actually costs money in transactions, and it is the one no conversion tool can help with.
Three documents can state three different areas for the same parcel, and they carry different weight:
Under the SVAMITVA scheme, with Survey of India as technology partner, inhabited rural land is being re-surveyed by drone at 1:500 scale against a network of 567 CORS stations, with a stated accuracy of about ±5 cm, designed explicitly to replace traditional chain survey. Note the scope limit that is usually omitted from coverage of the scheme: SVAMITVA covers inhabited (abadi) village land, not agricultural land.
The short answer: because the units were defined by ropes and rods, not by law, and the ropes were local.
Historical measurement systems. The Mughal revenue administration standardised a hierarchy (recorded in the Ain-i-Akbari as 20 biswanseh to a biswah, 20 biswah to a beegah of 3,600 square Ilahi gaz), but it standardised the ratios, not the underlying gaz, which itself changed between the Akbari, Ilahi and Shahjahani standards. Every later system inherited fixed ratios sitting on a floating base unit. That is exactly the structure you still see in Punjab, where 20 marla always make a kanal but the karam underneath varies by four different lengths.
Settlement-era fixing. British cadastral settlements in the 19th and early 20th centuries recorded whatever local measure they found rather than imposing one. A settlement officer in 1924 recorded "some forty different bighas in use in various parts of the State, based on chains or rather ropes varying from 100 feet to 185 feet." Those forty bighas were written into records that are still the ancestors of today's digitised entries.
Princely-state boundaries. Rajasthan is the clearest case, and uniquely it is documented in the rules themselves: the modern state was assembled from many former princely states, each with its own standard bigha, and Rule 70 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957 preserved them, recording area in "standard bighas or acres as prevalent in the integrating unit" with the differences set out in an appendix.
Pucca and kachha. Across the Hindi belt, a full (pucca) measure and a reduced (kachha) measure coexisted, the kachha being one-third or one-quarter of the pucca depending on district. This alone produces threefold and fourfold differences between neighbouring tehsils.
No statute ever fixed them. We searched the Legal Metrology Act 2009, the Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules 2011, the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act 1956 and the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation 1886 for numeric definitions of bigha, biswa, katha or dhur. There are none. The units live in rules, settlement manuals and revenue glossaries, not in the definitions section of any Act. That is why no authority exists to appeal to when two sources disagree.
Why this means you must select a state before converting. For acre, hectare, square metre, square foot, square yard, cent, decimal, guntha, gajam, chatak, lessa, ground and killa, no state selection is needed. Those units are the same everywhere they are used. For bigha, biswa, biswa kacha, katha, dhur, kanal, marla, sarsahi, square karam, nali, ankanam and pura, a conversion without a location is not an answer.
The most common conversion mistake in India is not arithmetic. It is converting from the wrong figure, usually a broker's number rather than the record's number, or the right number read from the wrong column.
Every state's record of rights is laid out differently and holds area in a different unit. Here is what to open and what to read.
| State | Record name | Portal | Area is recorded in | The specific misreading to avoid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maharashtra | 7/12 extract (satbara) | Mahabhulekh | Hectare – Are – Square metre (H-R-sqm) | Reading the middle "R" column as gunthas. An are is 1,076.391 sq ft; a guntha is 1,089. You are short 1.17%, and 1 hectare is 98.84 gunthas, not 100 |
| Gujarat | 7/12 (Satbara), 8-A | AnyRoR | Hectare – Are – Square metre | Same are/guntha confusion as Maharashtra; a Gujarat vigha is 16 guntha, not a metric quantity |
| Karnataka | RTC / Pahani | Bhoomi | Acres and guntas | The RTC's guntas are genuine gunthas (1,089 sq ft), unlike Maharashtra's ares; do not apply the Maharashtra correction here |
| Punjab | Jamabandi | PLRS | Kanal – Marla – Sarsahi, converted to hectares | Converting kanal to acres at 8 per acre without checking the local karam. In Amritsar it is 9.68; in Kapurthala 11.95 |
| Haryana | Jamabandi | Jamabandi.nic.in | Kanal – Marla – Sarsahi | Trying to convert to bigha. Haryana bigha figures in circulation are irreconcilable; stay in kanal-marla |
| Uttar Pradesh | Khatauni, Khasra | UP Bhulekh | Hectares (digitised); bigha–biswa in older entries | Accepting a "bigha" figure without asking how many biswa. The biswa is constant at 1,361.25 sq ft; the bigha is not |
| Bihar | Jamabandi, Khatiyan | Bihar Bhumi | Acre and decimal (dismil); katha and bigha in older records | Treating "decimal" as a decimal fraction. It is a unit: 435.6 sq ft |
| Jharkhand | Khatiyan | JharBhoomi | Acre / decimal; hectare–are–sq m in digitised fields | A circulating 27,211 sq ft "Jharkhand bigha" has no derivable chain, use the Ranchi katha of 720 sq ft |
| Rajasthan | Jamabandi | Apna Khata | "Standard bighas or acres as prevalent in the integrating unit" (Rule 70, 1957 Rules) | Assuming one Rajasthan bigha. Pucca is 27,225 sq ft; Marwar kachha is 17,424 |
| West Bengal | Khatian / RoR | Banglarbhumi | Decimal / shatak; bigha–katha–chatak locally | Kolkata trade sometimes halves the katha to 360 sq ft. Confirm 16 chatak or 8 |
| Assam | Jamabandi / Chitha | Dharitree | Acre or square metre | Assuming the Bengal katha. The Assam katha is 2,880 sq ft and 5 katha make a bigha, not 20 |
| Tamil Nadu | Chitta, Patta, Adangal | TN e-Services | Hectare / acre-cent | Ground can vary in older Chennai localities, confirm with the sub-registrar |
| Andhra Pradesh / Telangana | Adangal, Form 1-B | Meebhoomi, Dharani | Acre, cent, hectare, are, square metre | Ankanam appears in no government record. It is a market unit only, and it is 72 sq ft in most of AP but 36 sq ft around Tirupati |
| Kerala | Thandaper / RoR | ReLIS | Hectare / are; cent in practice | Cent is exact (1/100 acre); this is one of the few places no verification is needed |
| Odisha | RoR | Bhulekh Odisha | Acre – decimal | n/a |
A single parcel routinely carries three different areas, and they disagree for reasons a converter cannot fix.
Worked case. A seller in Pune district offers "2 acres." The papers show:
| Document | States | In square metres |
|---|---|---|
| Registered sale deed (1998) | 2 acres 0 gunthas | 8,093.71 |
| 7/12 extract (current) | 0 ha 79 are 00 sq m | 7,900.00 |
| Fresh ETS survey | n/a | 7,712.00 |
The deed-to-7/12 gap is 193.71 m², 2,085 sq ft, or 1.91 gunthas, about 2.4% of the parcel. The 7/12-to-survey gap is a further 188 m². Neither is a conversion error. The first is a difference between what the parties recited in 1998 and what the last cadastral settlement recorded. The second is the difference between a settlement-era measurement and a modern instrument.
What actually governs. The deed determines title: what you are buying. Its area recital is a statement by the parties, not a measurement. The 7/12 carries a presumption of correctness as to revenue and possession entries in most states, but it is not a document of title, and its figure descends from the last settlement, often colonial-era. The survey measures the parcel as it exists today and binds nobody until the revenue authority adopts it.
What to do. If the gap is under about 1%, it is measurement noise and the parties normally proceed. Above that, the correct step is a formal demarcation (mojni) through the revenue office and, if the record is wrong, a correction and mutation (dakhil-kharij), not a recalculation. Price on the surveyed area with a per-unit rate rather than a lump sum, so a later correction adjusts the money automatically.
Under the SVAMITVA scheme, Survey of India is re-surveying inhabited rural land by drone at 1:500 scale against 567 CORS stations, with stated accuracy around ±5 cm, explicitly to replace chain survey. Note the scope limit that most coverage omits: SVAMITVA covers abadi (inhabited) village land, not agricultural land. For farmland, the settlement-era record is still what you have.
Nobody converts land area for its own sake. They convert it to compare two priced offers, and that is where the arithmetic inverts and people get it backwards.
Price per unit moves inversely to the size of the unit. A bigger unit carries a bigger price tag for the same land. So a ₹4,00,000-per-guntha quote and a ₹1,60,00,000-per-acre quote are the same price, because a guntha is 1/40 of an acre.
Price per sq ft = Price per unit ÷ (size of unit in sq ft)
Price per acre = Price per sq ft × 43,560
Convert every offer to price per square foot first. It is the only unit small enough that no regional definition can distort it, and it makes any two quotes directly comparable.
| Quoted as | Per square foot | Per acre |
|---|---|---|
| ₹4,00,000 per guntha | ₹367.31 | ₹1,60,00,000 |
| ₹40,000 per guntha | ₹36.73 | ₹16,00,000 |
| ₹15,00,000 per bigha (UP pucca, 27,225 sq ft) | ₹55.10 | ₹24,00,000 |
| ₹2,50,000 per cent | ₹573.92 | ₹2,50,00,000 |
| ₹3,000 per gaj (sq yd) | ₹333.33 | ₹1,45,20,000 |
| ₹8,00,000 per kanal (standard, 5,445 sq ft) | ₹146.92 | ₹64,00,000 |
| ₹5,00,000 per ground (2,400 sq ft) | ₹208.33 | ₹90,75,000 |
| ₹1,20,000 per katha (West Bengal, 720 sq ft) | ₹166.67 | ₹72,60,000 |
A buyer in eastern Rajasthan is shown three parcels:
| Offer | Quoted price | Per square foot | Per acre |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | ₹6,00,000 per bigha (Marwar kachha, 17,424 sq ft) | ₹34.44 | ₹15,00,000 |
| B | ₹40,000 per guntha | ₹36.73 | ₹16,00,000 |
| C | ₹18,00,000 per acre | ₹41.32 | ₹18,00,000 |
A is the cheapest by 17% against C, and nothing about the three quoted numbers makes that visible. Note also that A's answer depends entirely on which Rajasthan bigha applies, on the pucca bigha of 27,225 sq ft the same ₹6,00,000 works out to ₹22.04/sq ft, which would make it cheaper still by a further 36%. The unit definition is worth more than the negotiation.
This one costs real money in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
A 7/12 shows 1 hectare 00 are. The seller quotes ₹4,00,000 per guntha and bills for 100 gunthas, because the record's "100" was read as gunthas.
The error is 1.17%, which sounds ignorable until it is attached to a crore-scale transaction. Check the 7/12's unit label before agreeing a per-guntha rate, and convert from the square-metre figure rather than the "R" column.
Stamp duty is charged on the higher of the transaction value and the state's notified minimum, the circle rate (north India), guideline value (Tamil Nadu), ready reckoner rate (Maharashtra) or market value guideline (Karnataka, Telangana). These are published per square metre or per square yard, not in traditional units.
So a transaction can involve three different units at once: the bigha the parties negotiated in, the hectare the 7/12 records, and the square metre the sub-registrar values in. Converting between all three correctly is what determines the stamp duty you actually pay, and an understated area does not save duty, because the sub-registrar values from the record, not from the deed's recital.
Length × Width = Area
If the measurements are in feet, the result is in square feet. Then:
Square Feet ÷ 43,560 = Acres
If the measurements are in metres:
Square Metres ÷ 4,046.8564224 = Acres
If the measurements are in yards or gaj:
Square Yards ÷ 4,840 = Acres
A plot measuring 100 ft × 200 ft:
100 × 200 = 20,000 sq ft
20,000 ÷ 43,560 = 0.4591 acres
Which is also: 45.91 cents, 18.37 gunthas, 3.67 kanal, 0.7346 bigha in Patna.
A plot measuring 45 m × 60 m:
45 × 60 = 2,700 sq m
2,700 ÷ 4,046.8564224 = 0.6672 acres (= 0.27 hectare = 27 ares)
Length × width works for a rectangle and for nothing else. Most agricultural parcels in India are not rectangles.
Where the plot is a simple composite shape, divide it into rectangles and right triangles, compute each, and sum. A triangle's area is ½ × base × height.
Where the boundary is genuinely irregular (a river edge, a contour-following field boundary, a terraced hillside) geometric decomposition will not give a defensible figure. You need:
Do not assume length × width works for every parcel. A quoted "100 × 200 plot" that is actually a trapezium can differ from 20,000 sq ft by several percent, and the discrepancy is always discovered after payment.
If your own measurement disagrees with the record of rights, the record is what the state recognises until it is corrected, but the record itself may be a century old. If the discrepancy is material, the correct step is a formal re-survey through the revenue office (mojni / demarcation), not a recalculation.
One acre is:
An acre has no fixed shape. It is an area, and an area can be any combination of dimensions whose product matches.
A square acre measures approximately 208.71 ft × 208.71 ft (63.61 m × 63.61 m, or 69.57 yd on a side). The side length is √43,560, which is an irrational number, so a perfectly square acre cannot have a whole-foot side.
Rectangular acres, all exactly one acre:
| Dimensions (ft) | Area (sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 208.71 × 208.71 | 43,560 |
| 100 × 435.6 | 43,560 |
| 132 × 330 | 43,560 |
| 150 × 290.4 | 43,560 |
| 165 × 264 | 43,560 |
| 200 × 217.8 | 43,560 |
| 220 × 198 | 43,560 (the canal-colony killa) |
| 660 × 66 | 43,560 (the original furlong × chain) |
Every row is the same amount of land. A 66 ft × 660 ft strip and a 208.71 ft square are both one acre, and they will feel completely different to stand on.
An acre defines area, not dimensions. "How many feet is an acre?" has no answer, the question mixes a length with an area. The only meaningful version is "what dimensions give one acre," and there are infinitely many.
| Feature | Acre | Hectare |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Customary area unit | Metric area unit |
| Standardisation | Standard by the 1959 international yard agreement | Standard by SI definition |
| Exact size | 4,046.8564224 m² | 10,000 m² exactly |
| In square feet | 43,560 | 107,639.104167 |
| Relative size | 1 acre = 0.404686 ha | 1 ha = 2.4710538 acres |
| Legal status in India | Not named in the Legal Metrology Act or Rules | Defined in the National Standards Rules, 2011 |
| Common use | Farm and estate transactions, brokers, listings | Land records, agricultural statistics, scheme thresholds |
| Sub-unit | Cent (1/100) | Are (1/100) |
When you will use each. The acre in conversation and negotiation; the hectare when you open the record. A Maharashtra 7/12, a metricated Punjab jamabandi, a Gujarat 7/12 and most DILRMP-digitised records state hectares. If the two disagree by more than a rounding, the record is the figure to investigate.
A memorable pair: 1 hectare ≈ 2.47 acres; 1 acre ≈ 0.4 hectare. And the cent and the are are close cousins (1 cent = 40.469 m², 1 are = 100 m²), so 1 are ≈ 2.47 cents, the same ratio as hectare to acre.
| Feature | Acre | Square Feet |
|---|---|---|
| Best suited for | Land parcels above ~0.25 acre | Plots, flats, built-up and carpet area |
| Area relationship | 1 acre = 43,560 sq ft | 1 sq ft = 0.00002296 acre |
| Indian property usage | Agricultural land, farmhouse plots, industrial and institutional land, land rate per acre | Apartment listings, plot listings under ~10,000 sq ft, construction cost, rent |
| Granularity | Coarse; 0.1 acre is 4,356 sq ft | Fine enough to price a single room |
| Appears in records | Bihar jamabandi, Karnataka RTC (with guntha) | Rarely; records use metric or traditional units |
Both appear constantly in Indian property search because they answer different questions. A buyer searching "plots in Bengaluru" is thinking in square feet; a buyer searching "agricultural land near Bengaluru" is thinking in acres and gunthas. The same listing often carries both, and the conversion between them is exact, so there is no reason for the two figures on a single listing ever to disagree. If they do, one of them is wrong, divide the square-foot figure by 43,560 and see which.
This is the comparison most Indian land buyers actually need, and it is not a comparison of two sizes. It is a comparison of two kinds of unit.
| Feature | Acre | Bigha |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Standardised area unit | Traditional regional unit |
| Defined by | The 1959 international yard agreement, 4,840 sq yd exactly | Nothing. No Indian statute defines it |
| Size | 4,046.8564224 m², identical everywhere | 632 m² to 2,529 m² depending on the state |
| Varies by state? | No | Yes, and by district, and by pucca/kachha |
| Sub-units | Cent, decimal (1/100 each) | Biswa (1/20), biswansi (1/400), or katha (1/20, or 1/5 in Assam) |
| Appears in records | Bihar jamabandi, Karnataka RTC, Assam jamabandi | Rajasthan jamabandi (statutorily), UP and MP older entries |
| Conversion reliability | Exact | Requires a location before any number is valid |
| Per acre | n/a | 1.6 to 6.4, depending on where you are |
| Region | 1 bigha | Bigha per acre | 1 acre expressed locally |
|---|---|---|---|
| UP pucca, Bihar, Rajasthan pucca | 27,225 sq ft | 1.6 | 1 bigha 12 biswa |
| Rajasthan kachha (Marwar), Gujarat, Uttarakhand plains | 17,424 sq ft | 2.5 | 2½ bigha |
| West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand | 14,400 sq ft | 3.025 | 3 bigha 0.5 katha (WB) |
| Madhya Pradesh (indicative) | 12,000 sq ft | 3.63 | ~3⅝ bigha |
| UP kachha (6⅔ biswa) | 9,075 sq ft | 4.8 | 4 bigha 5⅓ biswa |
| Himachal Pradesh | 8,712 sq ft | 5 | 5 bigha exactly |
| UP kachha (5 biswa), Uttarakhand hills | 6,806.25 sq ft | 6.4 | 6 bigha 2 biswa |
A price quoted per bigha carries no information until you know which bigha. ₹6,00,000 per bigha is ₹22.04/sq ft on a pucca bigha and ₹34.44/sq ft on a Marwar kachha bigha. A 56% difference in what you are actually paying, from the same sentence.
A "12 bigha" holding is between 1.875 and 7.5 acres. Ask for the area in square feet, in the local sub-unit (biswa in UP, katha in Bihar and Bengal), or straight from the record, never in bigha alone.
Two neighbouring tehsils can use different bighas. This is not an edge case. Rule 70 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957 preserves the different bigha measures of the former princely states that merged into Rajasthan, and refers to an appendix listing them. The state's own rules concede it.
The acre never has this problem. If both parties agree the area in acres, square feet or square metres, there is nothing left to dispute about the unit, only about the measurement.
Exact. 1 acre = 43,560 sq ft; = 4,840 sq yd; = 4,046.8564224 m²; = 100 cents; = 40 gunthas. These terminate. Nothing is approximated.
Rounded. 4,046.86 m², 0.4047 hectare, 20.17 nali. The underlying value is longer; you have cut it for display.
Non-terminating. 1 hectare = 2.4710538146716534… acres; 1 acre = 20.1666… nali. No decimal representation is complete.
Because 4,046.8564224 is unreadable on a phone screen and no property transaction needs seven decimal places of a square metre. That is a precision of about 0.1 mm² of land.
But rounding is not free, and the cost scales:
| Acres | Using 4,046.8564224 | Using 4,046.86 | Difference (m²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4,046.8564224 | 4,046.86 | 0.0036 |
| 100 | 404,685.64224 | 404,686.00 | 0.36 |
| 1,000 | 4,046,856.4224 | 4,046,860.00 | 3.58 |
| 10,000 | 40,468,564.224 | 40,468,600.00 | 35.78 |
Trivial for one plot; a visible 35.78 m² on a 10,000-acre aggregate. Round at the point of display, never at the point of calculation.
Not in the metric conversions. Those are exact or nearly so. The real losses are in the traditional units:
These are not rounding errors in the mathematical sense. They are wrong factors, and no amount of decimal places will fix them.
| From | Formula | Exact? |
|---|---|---|
| Square Feet | Sq Ft ÷ 43,560 | Exact |
| Square Yard / Gaj / Gajam | Sq Yd ÷ 4,840 | Exact |
| Square Metre | Sq M ÷ 4,046.8564224 | Exact |
| Square Inch | Sq In ÷ 6,272,640 | Exact |
| Square Centimetre | Sq Cm ÷ 40,468,564.224 | Exact |
| Hectare | Hectare × 2.4710538146716534… | Non-terminating |
| Are | Are ÷ 40.468564224 | Exact |
| Square Kilometre | Sq Km × 247.105381467… | Non-terminating |
| Square Mile | Sq Mile × 640 | Exact |
| Cent / Decimal / Dismil | ÷ 100 | Exact |
| Guntha | Guntha ÷ 40 | Exact |
| Ground | Ground ÷ 18.15 | Exact |
| Ankanam | Ankanam ÷ 605 (72 sq ft) or ÷ 1,210 (36 sq ft) | Exact |
| Kanal | Kanal ÷ 8 (standard belt) | Belt-dependent |
| Marla / Perch | ÷ 160 (standard belt) | Belt-dependent |
| Killa | × 1 | Exact |
| Murabba | × 25 | Exact |
| Chatak | ÷ 968 | Exact |
| Lessa | ÷ 302.5 | Exact |
| Nali | × 6 ÷ 121 | Non-terminating |
| Bigha, Biswa, Katha, Dhur, Pura | Depends on the regional definition | n/a |
The general reverse formula for any unit whose square-foot size you know:
Acres = (number of units × size of unit in sq ft) ÷ 43,560
2 × 43,560 = 87,120 sq ft
5 × 0.40468564224 = 2.0234282112 hectares (display: 2.0234 ha)
10 × 4,046.8564224 = 40,468.564224 sq m (display: 40,468.56 m²)
Given 100,000 sq ft:
100,000 ÷ 43,560 = 2.2957 acres
A 7/12 extract shows 1 hectare 25 are 00 sq m. What is that in acres and gunthas?
1 ha 25 are = 12,500 sq m
12,500 ÷ 4,046.8564224 = 3.0888 acres
12,500 ÷ 101.1714 = 123.55 gunthas
Now note what a broker reading the "R" column as gunthas would say: "1 hectare 25 gunthas," which computes as 2.4711 + (25 ÷ 40) = 3.0961 acres. The correct figure is 3.0888 acres. The shorthand overstates by 0.0072 acre, about 315 sq ft. Small on one plot; on a 40-hectare aggregate it is roughly a quarter acre of land that does not exist.
A seller in eastern UP offers "12 bigha." Before converting anything, ask: how many biswa?
The same three words describe four times the land. This is why the UP section of this page recommends transacting in biswa, which is constant at 1,361.25 sq ft statewide, rather than in bigha, which is not.
count × size in sq ft.60 katha in Patna: 60 × 1,361.25 = 81,675 sq ft ÷ 43,560 = 1.875 acres
60 katha in rural West Bengal: 60 × 720 = 43,200 sq ft ÷ 43,560 = 0.9917 acres
60 katha in Assam: 60 × 2,880 = 172,800 sq ft ÷ 43,560 = 3.9669 acres
Before converting a traditional unit, Bigha, Biswa, Biswa Kacha, Katha, Dhur, Nali, Kanal, Marla, Square Karam, Ankanam or Pura:
43,560 square feet, exactly. Acres × 43,560 = Square Feet. The figure comes from the acre's definition as one furlong by one chain (660 ft × 66 ft), which is why it is not a round decimal number.
4,840 square yards, exactly, which is 4,840 gaj or gajam in Indian property usage. Acres × 4,840 = Square Yards.
4,046.8564224 m² exactly; commonly displayed as 4,046.86 m². The exact figure follows from the international yard of 0.9144 m: 4,840 × 0.9144² = 4,046.8564224.
0.40468564224 hectare exactly, commonly shown as 0.4047 ha. In the other direction, 1 hectare = 2.4710538146716534… acres, which does not terminate.
Exactly 100. A cent is defined as one-hundredth of an acre = 435.6 sq ft. There is no regional variation and none is possible. It is standard in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and it originates from the surveyor's chain, 1,000 square links.
Exactly 40. A guntha is 1,089 sq ft (33 ft × 33 ft), used in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Do not confuse it with the are: 1 are = 1,076.391 sq ft, so a guntha is 1.17% larger, and 1 hectare = 98.84 gunthas, not 100. Maharashtra 7/12 extracts record ares, not gunthas.
There is no India-wide answer, and any source that gives you one without asking your state is guessing. The range is 1.6 to 6.4 bighas per acre:
| Region | Bigha per acre |
|---|---|
| UP pucca, Bihar, Rajasthan pucca | 1.6 |
| Rajasthan kachha, Gujarat, Uttarakhand plains | 2.5 |
| West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand | 3.025 |
| Madhya Pradesh (indicative) | 3.63 |
| UP kachha (6⅔ biswa) | 4.8 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 5 |
| UP kachha (5 biswa), Uttarakhand hills | 6.4 |
| Punjab, Haryana (western) | 21,780 sq ft, 4 kanal = exactly ½ acre |
This is not a limitation of this page. Rule 70 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957 itself records area in "standard bighas… as prevalent in the integrating unit," conceding that the bigha differs within a single state.
Depends on the state, but the underlying structure is simple: 20 biswa = 1 bigha everywhere the unit is used, so the biswa follows the local bigha.
Within Uttar Pradesh the biswa is constant at 1,361.25 sq ft. What varies is how many biswa the local trade calls a bigha. So in UP, ask for the area in biswa. That figure is unambiguous.
Regional, and the Bihar government's own revenue glossary concedes the katha "varies from region to region in Bihar":
The Assam katha is four times the Bengal katha even though both states use a 14,400 sq ft bigha, because in Assam 5 katha make a bigha, not 20.
640 in Bihar and Jharkhand (68.0625 sq ft each). But 12,100 in Tripura, where the dhur is 3.6 sq ft. That is a nineteen-fold difference behind one word, and it is the single most dangerous conversion in Indian land measurement. Never convert a dhur figure without knowing the state.
8 kanal and 160 marla in the standard 66-inch karam system (Malwa, urban Punjab, Ludhiana, Mohali, Haryana, J&K, most of Himachal). But three other karam lengths are in current use:
| Belt | Kanal/acre | Marla/acre |
|---|---|---|
| Standard (66 in) | 8 | 160 |
| Majha, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur (60 in) | 9.68 | 193.6 |
| Doaba, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur; HP Kangra (57.5 in) | 10.54 | 210.80 |
| Kapurthala (54 in) | 11.95 | 239.01 |
An 8-kanal holding is one acre in Ludhiana and 0.669 acre in Kapurthala. Within any belt, though, the internal ratios never move: 20 marla = 1 kanal, 9 sarsahi = 1 marla.
Yes. The acre is fixed at 4,046.8564224 m² everywhere, because it is defined against the international yard, not against any local practice. What changes between states is the local unit you express it in. 1 acre is 1.6 bigha in Patna and 5 bigha in Shimla, but it is the same amount of land in both places.
Because the bigha was never a defined area. It was laid out with a measuring chain or rope, and the rope length varied by district and by settlement epoch, a Settlement Commissioner in 1924 recorded "some forty different bighas… based on chains or rather ropes varying from 100 feet to 185 feet." Add the pucca/kachha distinction (kachha = one-third or one-quarter of pucca), the princely-state inheritance in Rajasthan, and the complete absence of any statutory definition, and multiple bighas are the inevitable result.
Square Feet ÷ 43,560 = Acres. Example: 100,000 ÷ 43,560 = 2.2957 acres.
Acres × 43,560 = Square Feet. Example: 7 × 43,560 = 304,920 sq ft.
No: the hectare is larger. 1 hectare = 10,000 m²; 1 acre = 4,046.8564224 m². A hectare is 2.4710538 acres. Treating a hectare as "about 2.5 acres" overstates: on 100 hectares that shortcut gives 250 acres against a true 247.11.
43,560 sq ft, 4,840 sq yd, 4,046.8564224 m², 0.4047 hectare, 100 cents, 40 gunthas, 8 kanal, 605 ankanam, 18.15 grounds. A square acre is about 208.71 ft (63.61 m) on each side, but an acre has no fixed shape.
Yes, and infinitely many other outlines. An acre measures area, not dimensions. 208.71 × 208.71 ft, 220 × 198 ft, 165 × 264 ft and 660 × 66 ft are all exactly one acre. The question "how many feet is an acre?" has no answer, it mixes a length with an area.
No, and they are different in kind, not just in size. The acre is a standardised unit with an exact international definition. The bigha is a traditional regional unit with no statutory definition anywhere in Indian law, whose value ranges from about 6,806 to 27,225 sq ft depending on where you are standing.
Yes: same unit, same word. Dismil and decimil are phonetic renderings of "decimal." All equal 435.6 sq ft = 1/100 acre. In Bengali the same unit is shatak (শতক); in south India it is the cent. Four names, one area.
In Indian property usage, yes: 1 gaj = 1 square yard = 9 sq ft, and 4,840 gaj make an acre. Strictly, gaj is a unit of length, a yard, and property usage drops the word "square" by convention. Watch for the ambiguity in phrases like "gaj frontage," which means running length and states no area at all. The Telugu equivalent is gajam, identical in value.
605, where the ankanam is the standard 72 sq ft (8 sq yd), the value used in Nellore, Guntur, Vijayawada and most of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. But around Tirupati the ankanam is 36 sq ft, giving 1,210 per acre. The word originally means an architectural bay, the span between two pillars, which is precisely why it never standardised. Check the layout plan or the registered document before converting. Note also that ankanam appears in no government record; AP and Telangana register in square yards and square metres.
It varies by region and by context. In conversation and negotiation, the acre nearly everywhere, with the local unit alongside it, gunthas in Maharashtra and Karnataka, cents in the south, bighas in the Hindi belt and Bengal, killas and kanals in Punjab and Haryana, nali in the Uttarakhand hills. In the official record, usually hectares and ares, except where a state records otherwise (Rajasthan in standard bighas or acres; Punjab in kanal-marla converted to hectares; Bihar in acres and decimals).
Use whatever unit the applicable official record and the registered documents use, and do not substitute a converted figure for it. Under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 the legally prescribed unit of area in India is the square metre, with the are and hectare defined in the National Standards Rules, 2011. The acre is not named in either. For a transaction: read the record of rights in its own units, read the registered deed, and where the value justifies it, commission a survey. An online converter is arithmetic on a stated definition. It is not a survey, not a valuation and not evidence of area.
Divide the quoted price by the size of the unit in square feet to get price per square foot, then compare. ₹4,00,000 per guntha ÷ 1,089 sq ft = ₹367.31 per sq ft = ₹1,60,00,000 per acre. Price per unit moves inversely to unit size, which is why a per-bigha quote looks larger than a per-guntha quote for the same land. See Converting Land Prices, Not Just Areas.
Usually none of them is wrong. They are three measurements from three different moments. The deed states what the parties recited; the record of rights carries the last cadastral settlement's figure; the survey measures the parcel today. The deed governs title, the record governs the revenue entry, and only the survey reflects the ground. Under about 1% the gap is measurement noise. Above it, seek a formal demarcation (mojni) and a record correction, and price on a per-unit rate rather than a lump sum so the money follows the correction.
Run it through the Four-Check Method. The first check does most of the work: any correct set of factors, multiplied up, must return to 43,560 sq ft per acre. Some quick tests that catch most bad sources:
Every figure was computed in exact rational arithmetic from a single anchor (1 acre = 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd = 4,046.8564224 m²), rather than transcribed from another converter. Each factor was checked to confirm that the unit chain closes back to 43,560 sq ft per acre, and each value is marked in the tables as exact or recurring. Where two sources disagreed, this page reports both and says which one closes arithmetically.
Standards and definitions - BIPM, SI Brochure, 9th edition, version 4.01 (4 June 2026): the are and hectare as historical decimal names - NIST, U.S. Survey Foot: FAQs and NIST SP 330 (2019), the international/survey foot distinction and the 31 December 2022 deprecation - The 1959 International Yard and Pound Agreement: yard = 0.9144 m exactly
Indian statute and official documents - Legal Metrology Act, 2009 (India Code): ss. 4, 5, 10, 11 - Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules, 2011: square metre, are, hectare - Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016: s. 2(k), carpet area - Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957: Rule 70 and Appendix I - Punjab Land Records Manual, Chapter 9: kanal, marla, sarsahi and hectare conversion - Bihar Revenue Glossary, Government of Bihar: dismil, acre, katha - Survey of India / PIB, SVAMITVA scheme documentation: drone survey at 1:500, ±5 cm, 567 CORS stations - Department of Land Resources: Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme
Reference works on Indian units - Sizes.com: bigha, marabba, guntha, káni (Madras chain), Kolkata and Punjab/Haryana land-area charts. A compilation, not a primary source: it cites the Ayeen Akbery (1800), colonial gazetteers and settlement reports, and it is those originals this page treats as the authority. Where a figure appears here on Sizes.com's word alone, the section carrying it says the value is conventional and names no instrument. - Starting points, not authorities. Wikipedia's articles on Bigha, Katha, Measurement of land in Punjab, Marla, Indian units of measurement, Guntha, Cent, Cawnie, Decimal, Rod and Ankanam were used to find leads and to cross-check unit names and spellings. No figure on this page rests on them. Every value here is either computed from the acre at 43,560 square feet or carried by a named instrument or judgment listed above; where neither exists, the page says the value is conventional and unsourced. - F. Kittel, A Kannada–English Dictionary: ankana as an architectural bay - Abu'l-Fazl, Ain-i-Akbari: the biswanseh/biswah/beegah hierarchy
Original contributions on this page. The Four-Check Method for testing any conversion source; the observation that the international/survey acre difference is 4 ppm rather than the widely-copied 2 ppm; the June 2026 SI Brochure reclassification of the are and hectare; Rule 70 of the Rajasthan Land Records Rules as a statutory admission that the bigha varies within one state; the guntha-versus-are gap quantified in money; the fact that the UP biswa is constant while the UP bigha is not; the identities marla = perch, UP biswansi = Bihar dhur, and HP biswa = one cent; the four karam systems computed to per-acre counts; the architectural origin of the ankanam as the explanation for its regional variation; and the price-conversion section, which no competing converter covers.
Where we could not verify something, this page says so. Specifically: we found no statutory definition of bigha, biswa, katha, dhur or guntha in any Act we could access; no government source for the pura; no evidence of current perch usage in Indian land records; no reliable katha value for Madhya Pradesh; no lessa value for the Cachar/Barak Valley; and no Indian source that explicitly adopts the international acre (we infer it, since India never used the US survey foot). Those gaps are stated in the relevant sections rather than filled with plausible numbers.
If you arrived here with a figure in another unit, start from that unit's page instead. Each one carries the same verified factors, the same regional qualifications and the same Four-Check Method, applied from its own starting point.
Standard units: Square Feet · Square Yard · Square Metre · Hectare · Ares · Square Kilometre Acre-derived: Cent · Decimal · Guntha · Perch · Killa · Murabba Southern and western: Ankanam · Gajam · Ground Northern: Bigha · Biswa · Kanal · Marla · Square Karam · Nali Eastern: Katha · Dhur · Chatak · Lessa · Pura
This page is an informational reference for land-area conversion. It is not legal, valuation or survey advice. Conversion factors for traditional Indian land units reflect the regional definitions identified here and may not match the definition applied in your district, in a particular land record, or by a particular authority. For any purchase, sale, mutation, partition, litigation or other transaction, rely on the applicable official land record, the registered documents and, where appropriate, a survey by a licensed surveyor or the revenue authority, not on a converted figure.
Conversion factors and standards references current as of September 2026.
| Conversion | 1 Acre | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ankanam | 605 (Standard) | Region-specific; also 1,210 (Tirupati) |
| Ares | 40.468564224 | Exact; 100 m², the metric are |
| Bigha | 1.6 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) | Region-specific; also 4.8 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 6.4 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills) · 2.5 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai) |
| Biswa | 32 (UP / Rajasthan pucca) | Region-specific; also 50 (Rajasthan kachha) · 96 (Punjab / Haryana old records) · 100 (Himachal Pradesh) |
| Biswa Kacha | 96 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition) | Region-specific; also 50 (Rajasthan kachha reading) |
| Cent | 100 | Exact; One hundredth of an acre, exactly |
| Chatak | 968 | Exact; 5 sq yd exactly; 16 to the cottah, 968 to the acre. Reported, not stated by any instrument located |
| Decimal | 100 | Exact; One hundredth of an acre, exactly |
| Dhur | 640 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain)) | Region-specific; also 12,100 (Tripura) |
| Dismil | 100 | Exact; The decimal under another name |
| Gaj | 4,840 | Exact; The square yard, 9 sq ft |
| Gajam | 4,840 | Exact; The square yard in Telugu, 9 sq ft |
| Ground | 18.15 | Exact; Tamil Nadu Urban Land Tax Act 1966, s.2(8-A): "an area comprising two hundred and twenty three square metres (two thousand and four hundred square feet)" |
| Guntha | 40 | Exact; 121 sq yd; 40 guntha = 1 acre exactly |
| Hectare | 0.40468564224 | Exact; 10,000 m² exactly |
| Kanal | 8 (Standard (66-inch karam)) | Region-specific; also 9.68 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 10.540038 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 11.950617 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) |
| Katha | 32 (Bihar state standard) | Region-specific; also 60.5 (West Bengal / Jharkhand) · 15.125 (Assam) · 25 (Bihar (Chhapra)) |
| Killa | 1 | Exact; the same area as an acre, 43,560 sq ft, under another name |
| Lessa | 302.5 | Exact; The 12-foot mauzadari jar squared (Assam Land Records Manual r.117); 20 to a katha, 100 to a bigha |
| Marla | 160 (Standard (66-inch karam)) | Region-specific; also 193.6 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 210.800756 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 239.012346 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) |
| Murabba | 0.04 (Punjab canal colony) | Region-specific; also 0.064 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal)) |
| Nali | 20.166667 | Recurring; 240 sq yd; 16 mutthi of 135 sq ft. No instrument located states the figure |
| Perch | 160 | Exact; 30.25 sq yd; 160 perches = 1 acre |
| Pura | 0.75625 | Exact; 4 Assam bigha of 14,400 sq ft. The 4:1 ratio is SOURCED -- the Supreme Court states it in 1961 and 1971 and the Gauhati High Court in 1986, 2023, 2024 and 2026 -- but no instrument, judgment or manual states the square-foot figure, which is derived from the Assam bigha |
| Square Centimeter | 40,468,564.224 | Exact; One ten-thousandth of a square metre |
| Square Feet | 43,560 | Exact; The base of this series |
| Square Inch | 6,272,640 | Exact; One 144th of a square foot |
| Square Karam | 1,440 (Standard (66-inch karam)) | Region-specific; also 1,742.4 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 1,897.206805 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 2,151.111111 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) |
| Square Kilometer | 0.0040468564224 | Exact; 1,000,000 m² |
| Square Meter | 4,046.8564224 | Exact; The SI unit of area |
| Square Mile | 0.0015625 | Exact; Standards of Weights and Measures Act 1976, Schedule (see s.79): "1 square mile = 2 589 988.110 336 square metres"; 640 acres exactly |
| Square Yard | 4,840 | Exact; 9 sq ft exactly |
Five of the thirty-two units are two names for one area with another, so their figures are identical to the last digit.
1 acre = 100 decimal. A decimal and a cent are the same area, 435.6 square feet, so any Acre figure converts to the same number of either. Decimal = Acre × 100 · reverse Acre = Decimal × 0.01
1 acre = 100 dismil. A dismil and a cent are the same area, 435.6 square feet, so any Acre figure converts to the same number of either. Dismil = Acre × 100 · reverse Acre = Dismil × 0.01
1 acre = 4,840 gajam. A gajam and a gaj are the same area, 9 square feet, so any Acre figure converts to the same number of either. Gajam = Acre × 4,840 · reverse Acre = Gajam ÷ 4,840
1 acre = 160 perches. A perch and a marla are the same area, 272.25 square feet, so any Acre figure converts to the same number of either. Perch = Acre × 160 · reverse Acre = Perch × 0.00625
1 acre = 4,840 square yards. A square yard and a gaj are the same area, 9 square feet, so any Acre figure converts to the same number of either. Square Yard = Acre × 4,840 · reverse Acre = Square Yard ÷ 4,840
The tables above are arithmetic, and for an acre the arithmetic is the easy half. What decides whether the figure you started with is the right one to convert at all is Start Here: Find Your Unit by State.
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