Written and fact-checked by Aadil Saif. Arithmetic independently re-verified · Last updated September 2026
Part of the India Land Unit Converter series.
Every value was held as an exact fraction and rounded once, at the point of printing. But the arithmetic was never the hard part here. The hard part was finding out which biswa values any authority actually states, and the answer is fewer than this page expected when it started. Each value below carries what stands behind it, in its own row: a court that states it, or nothing. Two figures in wide circulation are printed with the word Not found beside them, because that is what we found.
1 pucca biswa = 1,361.25 square feet = 151.25 square yards = 126.4642632 m² = exactly 1/32 acre. Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. 1 kachha biswa = 453.75 square feet = 50.41666… square yards = 42.1547544 m² = exactly 1/96 acre. Punjab. 20 biswa = 1 bigha. 20 biswansi = 1 biswa. 20 kachwansi = 1 biswansi.
| Biswa | Pucca, sq ft | Pucca, gaj | Kachha, sq ft | Kachha, gaj |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,361.25 | 151.25 | 453.75 | 50.4167 |
| 2 | 2,722.5 | 302.5 | 907.5 | 100.8333 |
| 5 | 6,806.25 | 756.25 | 2,268.75 | 252.0833 |
| 10 | 13,612.5 | 1,512.5 | 4,537.5 | 504.1667 |
| 20 | 27,225 | 3,025 | 9,075 | 1,008.3333 |
| Biswa | Square Feet | Square Meter | Bigha (UP pucca) | Acre | Cent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,361.25 | 126.4642632 | 0.05 | 0.03125 | 3.125 |
| 2 | 2,722.5 | 252.9285264 | 0.1 | 0.0625 | 6.25 |
| 3 | 4,083.75 | 379.3927896 | 0.15 | 0.09375 | 9.375 |
| 5 | 6,806.25 | 632.321316 | 0.25 | 0.15625 | 15.625 |
| 10 | 13,612.5 | 1,264.642632 | 0.5 | 0.3125 | 31.25 |
| 20 | 27,225 | 2,529.285264 | 1 | 0.625 | 62.5 |
| 50 | 68,062.5 | 6,323.21316 | 2.5 | 1.5625 | 156.25 |
| 100 | 136,125 | 12,646.42632 | 5 | 3.125 | 312.5 |
| 200 | 272,250 | 25,292.85264 | 10 | 6.25 | 625 |
| 500 | 680,625 | 63,232.1316 | 25 | 15.625 | 1,562.5 |
| 1,000 | 1,361,250 | 126,464.2632 | 50 | 31.25 | 3,125 |
A pucca biswa is exactly three kachha biswas. The same relationship the Bigha page describes for the bigha. If your document does not say which, one question usually settles it. The kachha measure has its own page: Biswa Kacha, which covers its nesting inside the kanal and marla a Punjab fard actually shows.
If your land is in Himachal Pradesh, neither figure applies and there is no third one we can give you. The 435.6 square feet in universal circulation appears in no Himachal instrument, and the state's own High Court records imply 405 and 485. → What a Himachal figure is worth
Convert The answer, first · Every biswa value, and what stands behind it · Biswa to square feet, gaj and square metres · To acre, hectare and the regional units · To square inch, centimetre, kilometre and mile
Understand The chain: bigha, biswa, biswansi, kachwansi · Pucca and kachha: a factor of three · The Himachal biswa nobody can source · The biswa and the katha are the same area · Twenty biswas to a village · Three mistakes
Check FAQ · Sources and method
Convert to a specific unit: Acre · Ankanam · Ares · Bigha · 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 a biswa's own size, 1,361.25 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. Every row below is computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca definition of the biswa, 1,361.25 square feet. The other definitions, and what each is attested by, are in the regional table on this page; a row read against the wrong one is wrong by the ratio between them.
| Conversion | Formula | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Biswa to Acre | Biswa × 0.03125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Ankanam | Biswa × 18.90625 | Exact · Ankanam is regional. This row is the Standard; also 37.8125 |
| Biswa to Ares | Biswa × 1.264642632 | Exact |
| Biswa to Bigha | Biswa × 0.05 | Exact · Bigha is regional. This row is the UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca; also 0.15, 0.2, 0.078125 and 5 more |
| Biswa to Biswa Kacha | Biswa × 1.5625 | Exact · Biswa Kacha is regional. This row is the Rajasthan kachha reading; also 3 |
| Biswa to Cent | Biswa × 3.125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Chatak | Biswa × 30.25 | Exact |
| Biswa to Decimal | Biswa × 3.125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Dhur | Biswa × 20 | Exact · Dhur is regional. This row is the Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain); also 378.125 |
| Biswa to Dismil | Biswa × 3.125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Gaj | Biswa × 151.25 | Exact |
| Biswa to Gajam | Biswa × 151.25 | Exact |
| Biswa to Ground | Biswa × 0.5671875 | Exact |
| Biswa to Guntha | Biswa × 1.25 | Exact |
| Biswa to Hectare | Biswa × 0.01264642632 | Exact |
| Biswa to Kanal | Biswa × 0.25 | Exact · Kanal is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 0.3025, 0.329376, 0.373457 |
| Biswa to Katha | Biswa × 1 | Exact · Katha is regional. This row is the Bihar state standard; also 1.890625, 0.47265625, 0.78125 and 2 more |
| Biswa to Killa | Biswa × 0.03125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Lessa | Biswa × 9.453125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Marla | Biswa × 5 | Exact · Marla is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 6.05, 6.587524, 7.469136 and 1 more |
| Biswa to Murabba | Biswa × 0.00125 | Exact · Murabba is regional. This row is the Punjab canal colony; also 0.002 |
| Biswa to Nali | Biswa × 121/192 | Recurring |
| Biswa to Perch | Biswa × 5 | Exact |
| Biswa to Pura | Biswa × 0.0236328125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Centimeter | Biswa × 1,264,642.632 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Feet | Biswa × 1,361.25 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Inch | Biswa × 196,020 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Karam | Biswa × 45 | Exact · Square Karam is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 54.45, 59.287713, 67.222222 |
| Biswa to Square Kilometer | Biswa × 0.0001264642632 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Meter | Biswa × 126.4642632 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Mile | Biswa × 0.000048828125 | Exact |
| Biswa to Square Yard | Biswa × 151.25 | Exact |
Search for a biswa conversion and you will be given four numbers: 1,361.25 square feet, 453.75, 871.2 and 435.6. They are presented as regional variants, the way this series presents the bigha's.
We went looking for what states each of them. Two are stated by a court. Two are not stated by anything we could find.
| The value | Square feet | Square yards | Its bigha (× 20) | Per acre | What states it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pucca biswa, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana | 1,361.25 | 151.25 | 27,225 sq ft | 32 | Observed. Supreme Court, Satish v. State of U.P. (2009): "One Biswa is equal to 151.25 square yards" |
| Kachha biswa, Punjab, Mohali belt | 453.75 | 50.41666… | 9,075 sq ft | 96 | Observed. Punjab & Haryana High Court, GMADA v. Hardip Kaur Gill (2025): "20 biswansis or 1 biswa is 50.41666 square yards" |
| Himachal biswa, as conventionally quoted | 435.6 | 48.4 | 8,712 sq ft | 100 | Not found. No HP instrument states it; see below |
| Rajasthan / Gujarat biswa, as often listed | 871.2 | 96.8 | 17,424 sq ft | 50 | Not found. No manual, rule or judgment located |
That table is the page. Everything else follows from it.
The two attested values are not rivals. They are the same unit measured with two different rods, and the ratio between them is exactly three. A pucca biswa is three kachha biswas, a pucca bigha is three kachha bighas, and the same factor runs the whole way down the chain. That is set out below, together with a practical consequence that costs people money in Saharanpur: the revenue record and the sale deed use different bighas.
The two unsourced values are a different problem, and the Himachal one is worth your attention if you own land there. It is the most widely repeated of the four, and no Himachal instrument states it. Himachal's own High Court, reciting bigha-and-biswa areas next to their hectare equivalents, produces figures that sit 7% below and 11% above it, in opposite directions.
Three other things this page establishes, none of which the converters carry:
The Supreme Court of India states it directly. In Satish & Ors v. State of U.P. (16 July 2009), dealing with land at Village Sarna, Murad Nagar, in Ghaziabad district, the Court sets out the chain in one sentence:
"One Biswa is equal to 151.25 square yards; one Biswasi is equal to 7.5625 square yards; and one Kachwasi is equal to 0.378 square yards."
151.25 square yards is 1,361.25 square feet, and 43,560 ÷ 1,361.25 is exactly 32. The pucca biswa is a thirty-second of an acre with no remainder.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court states the same figure for Haryana. In Sultan & Ors v. State of Haryana (27 March 2025), on land at village Mandhoti in Jhajjar district: "Whereas the area of biswa is 151.25 square yards."
Also stated directly, and by a court giving the ratio and the area in the same breath. GMADA v. Hardip Kaur Gill (Punjab & Haryana High Court, 25 February 2025), on land at Chilla, Mauli Baidwan, Kumbra and Raipur Khurd in SAS Nagar (Mohali):
"the area of 20 biswansis or 1 biswa is 50.41666 square yards, whereas 20 biswas or 1 bigha is 1008.3333 square yards"
and, in the same judgment, "96 biswas (4 bighas 16 biswas) is equivalent to 1 acre land measuring 4840 square yards."
50.41666… square yards is 453.75 square feet, and 43,560 ÷ 453.75 is exactly 96. Note that the Court's 50.41666 is a truncation: the exact value is 50.41666… recurring, one ninety-sixth of 4,840. The Court's own second sentence, 96 to the acre, confirms the exact figure rather than the truncated one.
Himachal Pradesh, 435.6 square feet. Neither the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1954 nor the Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972 contains the word bigha or the word biswa anywhere. The Ceiling Act expresses its limits in acres. We found no HP rule, manual or departmental page stating the biswa's area, and no HP judgment reproducing 435.6. What HP's judgments do produce is the substance of a whole section below.
Rajasthan and Gujarat, 871.2 square feet. We found nothing at all, no settlement manual, no revenue rule, no judgment. A full-text search of Indian court records for the figure alongside biswa or bigha returns nothing. We are not asserting it and we are not repeating it as though it were established.
What this means for the tables on the rest of this page. Every conversion below is computed for the two attested values. Where the unsourced figures appear, they appear labelled.
Everything on this page divides at one question, and it is worth settling before you convert anything. The two attested biswas differ by a factor of three, so getting this wrong is the largest error available here, larger than any rounding, larger than any of the unsourced values.
| The check | Pucca | Kachha | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biswas to the acre | 32 | 96 | Ask the patwari; it is the fastest single question |
| The local bigha, sq ft | 27,225 | 9,075 | A sale deed in the same village |
| The local bigha, sq yd | 3,025 | 1,008.3333 | Older deeds state this directly |
| One biswa, sq yd | 151.25 | 50.41666… | The figure courts state |
| Bighas to the acre | 1.6 | 4.8 | Derived from the row above |
| Typical belt | Western UP, Haryana, Bihar-facing districts | Punjab, Mohali belt, parts of western UP | Not a substitute for asking |
The fastest route is the first row. Ask how many biswas make an acre. Thirty-two means pucca; ninety-six means kachha. It is a single question, a patwari can answer it in a sentence, and the ITAT order discussed below shows a tribunal obtaining exactly that in writing because several crore rupees turned on it.
Two warnings about inferring it from the region. First, both measures are in use in parts of western Uttar Pradesh, so the belt does not always decide. Second, and this is the one that costs money, in some districts the revenue record and the sale deed are in different measures for the same land. That practice is documented for Saharanpur, and it means establishing the measure once is not enough: you have to establish it for each document.
If your land is in Himachal Pradesh, neither column applies and the question is a different one. → The Himachal biswa
Pucca biswa: Uttar Pradesh and Haryana:
| Pucca biswa | Square feet | Square yards (gaj) | Square metres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,361.25 | 151.25 | 126.4643 |
| 2 | 2,722.5 | 302.5 | 252.9285 |
| 3 | 4,083.75 | 453.75 | 379.3928 |
| 4 | 5,445 | 605 | 505.8571 |
| 5 | 6,806.25 | 756.25 | 632.3213 |
| 8 | 10,890 | 1,210 | 1,011.7141 |
| 10 | 13,612.5 | 1,512.5 | 1,264.6426 |
| 12 | 16,335 | 1,815 | 1,517.5712 |
| 15 | 20,418.75 | 2,268.75 | 1,896.9639 |
| 16 | 21,780 | 2,420 | 2,023.4282 |
| 20 | 27,225 | 3,025 | 2,529.2853 |
| 25 | 34,031.25 | 3,781.25 | 3,161.6066 |
| 32 | 43,560 | 4,840 | 4,046.8564 |
| 40 | 54,450 | 6,050 | 5,058.5705 |
| 50 | 68,062.5 | 7,562.5 | 6,323.2132 |
| 64 | 87,120 | 9,680 | 8,093.7128 |
Kachha biswa: Punjab:
| Kachha biswa | Square feet | Square yards (gaj) | Square metres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 453.75 | 50.42 | 42.1548 |
| 2 | 907.5 | 100.83 | 84.3095 |
| 3 | 1,361.25 | 151.25 | 126.4643 |
| 4 | 1,815 | 201.67 | 168.619 |
| 5 | 2,268.75 | 252.08 | 210.7738 |
| 8 | 3,630 | 403.33 | 337.238 |
| 10 | 4,537.5 | 504.17 | 421.5475 |
| 12 | 5,445 | 605 | 505.8571 |
| 15 | 6,806.25 | 756.25 | 632.3213 |
| 16 | 7,260 | 806.67 | 674.4761 |
| 20 | 9,075 | 1,008.33 | 843.0951 |
| 25 | 11,343.75 | 1,260.42 | 1,053.8689 |
| 32 | 14,520 | 1,613.33 | 1,348.9521 |
| 40 | 18,150 | 2,016.67 | 1,686.1902 |
| 50 | 22,687.5 | 2,520.83 | 2,107.7377 |
| 64 | 29,040 | 3,226.67 | 2,697.9043 |
And in reverse, from a square-foot figure. Two rows are worth spotting: 435.6 is the unsourced Himachal value and 453.75 the attested kachha biswa. They are four per cent apart and easily confused.
| Square feet | Pucca biswa | Kachha biswa |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0.073462 | 0.220386 |
| 250 | 0.183655 | 0.550964 |
| 435.6 | 0.32 | 0.96 |
| 453.75 | 0.333333 | 1 |
| 500 | 0.367309 | 1.101928 |
| 1,000 | 0.734619 | 2.203857 |
| 1,361.25 | 1 | 3 |
| 2,000 | 1.469238 | 4.407713 |
| 2,500 | 1.836547 | 5.509642 |
| 5,000 | 3.673095 | 11.019284 |
| 10,000 | 7.346189 | 22.038567 |
| 27,225 | 20 | 60 |
| 43,560 | 32 | 96 |
Every value in those tables is exact. The biswa is built on the square yard, the square yard on the foot, and the foot has been exactly 0.3048 metre since 1959, so every biswa figure has an exact metric value.
Exact is not the same as terminating, and this page is a good place to see the difference. The square-metre column terminates throughout: 126.4642632 m², and it stops. The square-yard column for the kachha biswa does not. One kachha biswa is 605/12 square yards, and a denominator of 12 carries a 3, so the decimal recurs: 50.41666… The Punjab and Haryana High Court prints it as 50.41666, which is that value truncated. Both describe the same exact quantity; only one of them can be written down completely. The rule that decides which, and why every factor in this series is exact in the first place, is set out with the metric anchor.
Records do not stop at the biswa, and a conversion that does will not read a four-level entry. A Uttar Pradesh khatauni entry routinely runs to four levels, and the Supreme Court has recited all four in a single area: "666 Bigha, 7 Biswa, 8 Biswansi, 8 Kachwansi", Lucknow Development Authority v. Gopal Das (24 July 2019).
| Unit | As the Supreme Court states it | Square feet | Per bigha | Per acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bigha (pucca) | 3,025 square yards | 27,225 | 1 | 1.6 |
| Biswa | "151.25 square yards" | 1,361.25 | 20 | 32 |
| Biswansi (biswasi) | "7.5625 square yards" | 68.0625 | 400 | 640 |
| Kachwansi (kachwasi) | "0.378 square yards" † | 3.403125 | 8,000 | 12,800 |
† The Court prints 0.378 square yards. The exact value is 0.378125, a twentieth of 7.5625, so the Court's figure is that rounded to three decimals. We print the exact value and note the difference rather than reproducing a rounding as though it were the definition.
Everything is twenties. Twenty kachwansi make a biswansi, twenty biswansi make a biswa, twenty biswa make a bigha. Eight thousand kachwansi make one bigha, and the whole system is base-20 from top to bottom.
What makes Satish unusually good evidence is that it does not just state the rates. It applies them. The land at issue was 1 biswa, 9 biswansi and 15 kachwansi, and the Court converts:
| Component | Court's rate | × count | Square yards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 biswa | 151.25 | 1 | 151.25 |
| 9 biswansi | 7.5625 | 9 | 68.0625 |
| 15 kachwansi | 0.378125 | 15 | 5.6719 |
| Total | 224.9844 | ||
| The Court's own figure | 224.98 |
The Court's rates, applied to the Court's own parcel, reproduce the Court's own total. It is the only place in this series where a court has supplied both the rates and a worked example in the same paragraph, which means these figures can be tested without leaving the judgment they come from.
Records routinely end in biswansi and kachwansi. Nineteen is the largest figure either column can legitimately show, so the rows past twenty are for totalling rather than for reading off a single entry.
Pucca measure. On the kachha measure divide every figure by three: the kachha biswansi is 22.6875 sq ft, the kachha kachwansi 1.134375.
| Count | Biswansi, sq ft | Biswansi, sq m | Kachwansi, sq ft | Kachwansi, sq m |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 68.0625 | 6.3232 | 3.403125 | 0.3162 |
| 2 | 136.125 | 12.6464 | 6.80625 | 0.6323 |
| 5 | 340.3125 | 31.6161 | 17.015625 | 1.5808 |
| 10 | 680.625 | 63.2321 | 34.03125 | 3.1616 |
| 15 | 1,020.9375 | 94.8482 | 51.046875 | 4.7424 |
| 19 | 1,293.1875 | 120.1411 | 64.659375 | 6.0071 |
| 20 | 1,361.25 | 126.4643 | 68.0625 | 6.3232 |
| 50 | 3,403.125 | 316.1607 | 170.15625 | 15.808 |
| 100 | 6,806.25 | 632.3213 | 340.3125 | 31.6161 |
| 200 | 13,612.5 | 1,264.6426 | 680.625 | 63.2321 |
| 400 | 27,225 | 2,529.2853 | 1,361.25 | 126.4643 |
An entry of 2 bigha 12 biswa 8 biswansi is not three numbers. It is one, in base 20:
The arithmetic is easy. The trap is the one metric records set in a different form: the columns are not independent quantities and they do not carry over at ten. Twenty biswa is not "twenty". It is one bigha and zero biswa. If you find an entry with a biswa figure of 20 or more, or a biswansi figure of 20 or more, it has been written wrongly or transcribed wrongly, and it is worth going back to the record before you convert it.
Converter sites list further levels (tasu, anguli) beneath the kachwansi. We could not find a source for any of them and do not reproduce them. The kachwansi is where the attested chain ends, at 3.403125 square feet: a square about one foot ten inches on a side.
Pucca means ripe, firm, standard. Kachha means unripe, rough, short. Applied to land measure they name two rods, and the areas they generate stand in a fixed ratio.
| Pucca | Kachha | Ratio | Is this an observation? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biswa, square yards | 151.25 | 50.41666… | 3 | Observed, two courts state these two figures independently |
| Bigha, square feet | 27,225 | 9,075 | 3 | Observed separately; ITAT Delhi, on a Patwari's certificate |
| Biswa, square feet | 1,361.25 | 453.75 | 3 | Applied, the row above, in square feet |
| Biswa per acre | 32 | 96 | 3 | Applied; the same figures as acre counts |
| Biswansi, square feet | 68.0625 | 22.6875 | 3 | Applied, implied by the shared ÷20 chain |
The ratio is exactly three between the two attested biswas, and the ITAT states it independently for the bigha. The other rows are that ratio restated in other units, not four separate confirmations of it. The right-hand column says which is which, on the same principle as the master table. Two observations, three applications.
The ratio itself is attested. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi Bench, in ACIT v. Afrin Rizvi (20 December 2017), dealing with land at Village Bhaguwala in Saharanpur district, records that "one Pucca Bigha is equivalent to three Kaccha Bigha". Relying on a Patwari's certificate, and then cross-checking it: 280 kachha bighas divided by three gives about 93, which matched the 93.13 pucca bighas recorded in the seized sale deeds.
The same order contains a sentence that is worth more to a buyer in western UP than any conversion table:
"the prevalent mode of entries in the land revenue records is that the land is shown in kachha Bighas while the sale deeds always record the area in pucca or pukhta bigha"
The record and the deed describe the same land in different units, and they differ by a factor of three. A holding entered on the khatauni as 30 kachha bighas is 10 pucca bighas in the sale deed. Neither document is wrong. A reader who takes the khatauni figure and the deed figure as the same measure will conclude that two-thirds of the land has gone missing, or, worse, will pay for three times what is being sold.
If you are transacting in a belt where both are in use, establish which measure each document is in before you compare them, and get it in writing. The ITAT order shows a tribunal doing exactly that, with a Patwari's certificate, because the point was worth several crore rupees.
There is a widely-repeated explanation for the factor of three: that the pucca karam, the surveyor's rod, is 99 inches, the kachha karam is 99 ÷ √3 ≈ 57.157 inches, and since area goes as the square of length, the areas stand in a ratio of exactly three.
The arithmetic is self-consistent and it produces the right answer. We could not verify either rod length from any manual, rule or judgment. Every source that appeared to carry them was unreachable. So: the factor of three is attested and the explanation for it is not, and we are separating the two rather than presenting a neat story as though it were sourced.
If your land is in Himachal Pradesh, this is the section to read.
The figure in universal circulation is 435.6 square feet, a hundred biswas to the acre, one biswa to the cent, a 8,712-square-foot bigha, five bighas to the acre. It is tidy, it is memorable, and we could not find a single Himachal instrument that states it.
What is actually in the statutes: neither the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1954 nor the Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972 uses the word bigha or the word biswa at all. The Ceiling Act sets its limits in acres, ten, fifteen, thirty.
What Himachal's own High Court produces, when it recites a bigha-and-biswa area next to the metric figure from the record:
| Source | Area as recited | Implied bigha | Implied biswa | Against 435.6 sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP High Court, Ram Sain v. Hari Dass (2024) | "3 Bighas 4 Biswas equivalent to 0-24-08 hectares" | 752.5 m² | 37.625 m² = 405 sq ft | 7.03% below |
| HP High Court, Bhawani Dutt Sharma (2019) | "1024 bighas and 16 biswas (92-29-38 Hectares)" | 900.6 m² | 45.0302 m² = 484.7 sq ft | 11.27% above |
| The conventional figure, unsourced | n/a | 809.4 m² | 40.4686 m² = 435.6 sq ft | n/a |
Read those two rows together. One judgment implies a biswa about 7% smaller than the conventional figure; the other implies one about 11% larger. They miss in opposite directions, and they differ from each other by nearly 20%. Two possibilities fit that pattern and we cannot choose between them from the material we have: either Himachal's bigha genuinely varies locally, as the bigha does almost everywhere else in India; or the hectare figures in these judgments come from re-survey rather than from conversion, in which case they record the land as measured and the bigha-biswa figure is the historic entry.
There is a statutory reason to expect Himachal's metric figures to drift away from any fixed biswa. Section 33-A of the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1954 (inserted by HP Act 3 of 1996, with effect from 23 September 1976) provides:
"In case the measurements of any land in the record-of-rights are recorded in non-metric system, there shall, during making record-of-rights or special revision of record-of-rights under section 33 of this Act, be a complete remeasurement of the estate or sub-estate based on the units of metric system"
That is an instruction to re-measure, not to convert, the closest thing to a formal metrication of the biswa we found anywhere in India. And it may explain what the two judgments show: where a revision has been carried out, the hectare figure on the record is a fresh survey of the ground, and there is no reason for it to reproduce any particular biswa.
Note the condition, because it cuts both ways. Section 33-A bites at revision events, not continuously. Where a revision has happened since 1976 the metric figure is a measurement. Where it has not, that figure may itself be a conversion of the old bigha-and-biswa entry, in which case it carries whatever biswa the converting officer used, and you are back where you started. The record will not tell you which; your patwari or tehsildar can.
Plenty of Himachal transactions are discussed in biswas and someone has to put a number on them. Rather than print the conventional value alone, here are the two figures Himachal's own High Court recitals imply, with the conventional number between them. Treat these as the range of what has appeared on the record, not as bounds on the biswa itself, if either recital's hectare figure is a conversion rather than a measurement, its implied biswa is evidence about the converting officer, not about the unit:
| Himachal biswa | At 405 sq ft (HP HC, low) | At 435.6 sq ft (conventional) | At 485 sq ft (HP HC, high) | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 405 sq ft | 436 sq ft | 485 sq ft | 80 sq ft |
| 2 | 810 sq ft | 871 sq ft | 969 sq ft | 159 sq ft |
| 5 | 2,025 sq ft | 2,178 sq ft | 2,424 sq ft | 399 sq ft |
| 10 | 4,050 sq ft | 4,356 sq ft | 4,847 sq ft | 797 sq ft |
| 15 | 6,075 sq ft | 6,534 sq ft | 7,271 sq ft | 1,196 sq ft |
| 20 | 8,100 sq ft | 8,712 sq ft | 9,694 sq ft | 1,594 sq ft |
| 25 | 10,125 sq ft | 10,890 sq ft | 12,118 sq ft | 1,993 sq ft |
| 40 | 16,200 sq ft | 17,424 sq ft | 19,388 sq ft | 3,188 sq ft |
| 50 | 20,250 sq ft | 21,780 sq ft | 24,235 sq ft | 3,985 sq ft |
| 100 | 40,499 sq ft | 43,560 sq ft | 48,470 sq ft | 7,971 sq ft |
Read the last column. On a twenty-biswa holding, one conventional bigha, the spread between the two judicially-implied values is about 1,594 square feet: more than three and a half biswas out of twenty. On a hundred biswas it is 7,971 square feet, roughly a fifth of an acre.
That is not a rounding error, and no amount of decimal precision on 435.6 will close it. It is the size of the question this page cannot answer.
What to do with all this. For orientation, 435.6 square feet is the conventional number and will get you within about ten per cent. For anything that matters, work from the metric figure on your own record, and ask when that record was last revised, because the answer decides whether that figure is a measurement or a conversion.
This series has a page on the katha, and its central finding is that a katha has no value of its own. It is one twentieth of whatever bigha is local, and it inherits that bigha's size.
The biswa works the same way, in a different half of the country. And in one place the two rules land on exactly the same number.
| UP biswa | Patna katha | |
|---|---|---|
| Square feet | 1,361.25 | 1,361.25 |
| Square metres | 126.4642632 | 126.4642632 |
| Fraction of an acre | 1/32 | 1/32 |
| The local bigha | 27,225 sq ft | 27,225 sq ft |
| Twentieth of that bigha? | Yes | Yes |
| Stated directly by | Supreme Court, Satish v. State of U.P. (2009) | Supreme Court, Thakur Kamta Prasad Singh v. State of Bihar, AIR 1976 SC 2219 |
A pucca biswa in Ghaziabad and a katha in Patna are the same area. Both are 1,361.25 square feet, both exactly a thirty-second of an acre, and both are a twentieth of the same 27,225-square-foot bigha.
That last clause is the explanation, and it is worth stating plainly rather than treating the agreement as a coincidence. The same 3,025-square-yard bigha is attested at both ends of the plain (Ghaziabad in the west, Patna in the east), and the conventional account is that it runs across the territory between. We can show you the two endpoints; the continuity in between is the standard description rather than something we verified district by district. Where it runs, the whole ladder runs with it, and the vocabularies change while the sizes do not:
| Level | Uttar Pradesh | Bihar | Square feet |
|---|---|---|---|
| The bigha | bigha | bigha | 27,225 |
| A twentieth | biswa | katha | 1,361.25 |
| A four-hundredth | biswansi | dhur | 68.0625 |
| An eight-thousandth | kachwansi | dhurki | 3.403125 |
Four levels, two vocabularies, one measurement system. This is not two traditions arriving independently at the same number. It is one bigha with two sets of names on it, and that is a better finding than the coincidence would have been.
What this does and does not mean. It does not mean the words are interchangeable. A UP khatauni will not say katha, a Bihar jamabandi will not say biswa, and asking for one in the other's territory will get you a blank look. It means that if you hold land in both states, or are comparing a UP holding against a Bihar one, you can compare the figures directly, no conversion, no factor. One biswa is one katha. The columns are the same size and only the headings differ.
What is independent is the sourcing, not the fact. The Katha page reaches 1,361.25 from the Bihar side, via a Supreme Court statement that a katha is a thirty-second of an acre. This page reaches it from the UP side, via a different Supreme Court judgment stating that a biswa is 151.25 square yards. Two courts, two states, two routes to the same figure, worth having, because neither page's value now depends on the other's. That is one fact with two independent citations, not two independent facts, and the difference matters.
One more level is worth noting because it makes the same point at the bottom of the ladder: the biswansi and the Bihar dhur are both 68.0625 square feet, and that figure is also exactly one-sixteenth of a guntha, so the Gangetic ladder and the Deccan one meet, once, four levels down.
Everything above treats the biswa as a measure of ground. For most of a century in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, the territory that became Uttar Pradesh, it was also something else, and the two meanings ran on identical arithmetic.
A village was reckoned as twenty biswas. Not twenty biswas of land: twenty biswas of itself. A proprietor's interest in the village was expressed as a number of biswas out of that twenty, and the fractions ran down the same ladder (biswansi, kachwansi) as the areal units.
Because the two meanings produce documents that look identical and mean opposite things, and old title deeds are still read.
A pre-abolition deed conveying "a 5 biswa share in the village Muzaffra" (Amolak Ram v. Chandan Singh, 1902) transfers a quarter of a village. Converted as an area at the pucca rate it comes to 6,806.25 square feet, about a sixth of an acre. The two readings are not close, and nothing in the words distinguishes them. What distinguishes them is the presence of a village name and the absence of a khasra number: a share is a share in a named mahal or mauza; an area is an area of a numbered plot.
The Allahabad High Court and the Privy Council used the construction across the whole of the period we could sample, the judgments below run from 1902 to 1946:
| Judgment | Year | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| Amolak Ram v. Chandan Singh | 1902 | "a 5 biswa share in the village Muzaffra" |
| Musammat Shamdei v. Baljit Singh | 1909 | "a 13 biswansi and 6½ kachwansi share in the village Dyanatpur" |
| Musammat Parbati v. Muhammad Muzaffar Ali Khan | 1912 | "proprietary possession of thirteen biswas… a fraction of the twenty biswas of Mauza Lohari" |
| Lala Birj Lal v. Musammat Inda Kunwar | 1914 | "entire mouzah represented as twenty biswas" |
| Jhanda Singh v. Wahid-ud-Din | 1916 | "the entire twenty biswas zamindari property in mauza Phul" |
| Gobardhan v. Manna Lal | 1918 | "the 3¾ biswas share" |
| Bhup Singh v. Chedda Singh | 1920 | "19 biswas share in village Hasanpur Ladanki" |
| Kunwar Mohammad Abdul Jalil Khan v. Ubedullah Khan | 1921 | "17 biswansi and 10 kachwansi share in village Khakethal" |
| Moti Shah v. Ghandharp Singh | 1926 | "2 biswas 8 kachwansis share in village Mulupura" |
| Bhoopal Rai v. Shiam Sunder Lal | 1929 | "each of the three mahals having recently been formed into a twenty biswa mahal… the plaintiffs owned ten biswas" |
| Musammat Allah Rakhi v. Shah Mohammad Abdur Rahim | 1933 | "the entire twenty biswa village being divided into five shares" |
| Pokhpal Singh v. Kanhaiya Lal | 1946 | "one biswa share in village Khushkari" |
Read the 1912 and 1933 entries together and the structure is unmistakable: "a fraction of the twenty biswas of Mauza Lohari", and "the entire twenty biswa village being divided into five shares". The village is the twenty. A thirteen-biswa proprietor holds thirteen-twentieths of it.
The tell is the sub-units. A share of "13 biswansi and 6½ kachwansi" in a village is not 13 × 68.06 square feet of anything. It is 13/400ths plus 6.5/8000ths of whatever that village happens to contain, which might be four hundred acres or forty. The same three words, the same base-20 ladder, and a completely different referent.
This is historical, not current. These are zamindari and other intermediary tenures, and they were abolished in Uttar Pradesh by the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950. We found no instance of biswa-as-share after the mid-1950s, and you will not meet it on a khatauni issued today.
It rests on judicial usage, not on a definition. Twelve judgments use the construction and none of them defines it, because none of them needed to, every judge and every pleader knew what a twenty-biswa mahal was. We found no statute, rule or revenue manual that defines the biswa as a share, and we searched for one. So this is established practice, described consistently by courts over seventy years, and it is not a sourced definition. The distinction matters and we are not blurring it.
We could not see the column. The share was recorded on the khewat, and we could not retrieve a prescribed khewat form to show you how it was set out.
Both attested biswas convert exactly into every other unit in this series, because both are exact rational multiples of the square foot (whole numbers of square inches, in fact, 196,020 and 65,340), and the square foot has an exact metric value.
| Unit | 1 pucca biswa = | 1 kachha biswa = | 1 of it = pucca biswa |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acre | 0.03125 | 0.01041667 | 32 |
| Hectare | 0.01264643 | 0.00421548 | 79.073722 |
| Are | 1.264643 | 0.421548 | 0.790737 |
| Square metre | 126.4643 | 42.1548 | 0.007907 |
| Guntha | 1.25 | 0.416667 | 0.8 |
| Cent · Decimal · Dismil | 3.125 | 1.041667 | 0.32 |
| Ground | 0.567188 | 0.189063 | 1.763085 |
| Marla (66-in) | 5 | 1.666667 | 0.2 |
| Kanal (66-in) | 0.25 | 0.083333 | 4 |
| Ankanam | 18.90625 | 6.302083 | 0.052893 |
| Chatak | 30.25 | 10.083333 | 0.033058 |
| Nali | 0.630208 | 0.210069 | 1.586777 |
| Katha (Patna) | 1 | 0.333333 | 1 |
| Katha (Bengal) | 1.890625 | 0.630208 | 0.528926 |
| Bigha (UP pucca) | 0.05 | 0.016667 | 20 |
Two rows in that table are worth a second look.
The pucca biswa and the Patna katha come out at exactly 1. That is the identity above, appearing in the arithmetic rather than the argument.
And a note on the number that is not in the table. The conventional Himachal biswa of 435.6 square feet is exactly one cent, a hundredth of an acre, a hundred to the acre, five bighas to the acre.
It would be easy to treat that tidiness as suspicious. It is not, and the table above shows why: a guntha is exactly 40 to the acre, a cent 100, a marla 160, a kanal 8, an ankanam 605, a chatak 968. Traditional Indian units land on whole-number counts of the acre constantly, and both attested biswas do it too, 32 and 96. Nothing about 435.6 is odd except that we cannot find anyone official who says it, and that objection stands on its own without help.
| Unit | 1 pucca biswa | 1 kachha biswa |
|---|---|---|
| Square inch | 196,020 | 65,340 |
| Square centimetre | 1,264,642.63 | 421,547.54 |
| Square kilometre | 0.000126464 | 0.000042155 |
| Square mile | 0.000048828 | 0.000016276 |
The biswa has an odd standing. No state revenue code we could read names it, and yet it appears on records and in government awards across northern India.
The Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006 and the Revenue Code Rules, 2016 prescribe no area unit at all; where the Rules state an area they state it metrically, as in Rule 62(1)(b)'s "less than 1.26 hectares (3.125 acres)". The Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1954 does not contain the word. Neither does the HP Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972, which sets its limits in acres.
Where the biswa actually operates is one level down, in the records and instruments made under those codes:
The pattern is worth naming. The biswa is not a legal unit; it is a recording convention that no code we could read either abolishes or defines. It survives because records are continuous and re-survey is expensive, not because any instrument protects it. Himachal's section 33-A is the one place we found a state legislating in the other direction, and what it mandates is not conversion but complete re-measurement.
1. Using a biswa figure without knowing whether it is pucca or kachha. This is a factor of three, and it is the largest single error available on this page. A "20 biswa" plot is 27,225 square feet on the pucca measure and 9,075 on the kachha. If the document does not say, the belt usually decides it: western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana records are typically pucca; the Punjab records the Mohali judgment describes are kachha. But do not infer it from the region alone when money turns on it. The checks that settle it are here, and they take one question.
2. Treating the record and the deed as being in the same unit. In parts of western UP they are not. The revenue record is kept in kachha bighas and the sale deed is written in pucca. The practice the ITAT describes for Saharanpur. Compare the two figures without checking and the land will appear to triple or vanish. Convert both to square feet before you compare anything.
3. Carrying a Himachal biswa into a calculation that matters. The 435.6 square-foot figure is conventional, not sourced, and Himachal's own High Court records imply values 7% below and 11% above it. For orientation it is fine. For a boundary, a valuation or a compensation claim, work from the metric figure on your own record, and ask when that record was last revised, because section 33-A's remeasurement duty bites at revision events rather than continuously. → The Himachal biswa
1 biswa mein kitne square feet? / How many square feet are in 1 biswa? 1,361.25 square feet for the pucca biswa of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, 151.25 square yards, exactly a thirty-second of an acre. 453.75 square feet for the kachha biswa of Punjab, exactly a ninety-sixth of an acre. Both figures are stated directly by courts. Any other value you are offered, including the Himachal 435.6, we could not source.
1 bigha mein kitne biswa? / How many biswa in a bigha, and is it always 20? Twenty, in every instance we could find, and we looked for an exception. The bigha changes size from place to place; the ratio does not. The Punjab and Haryana High Court states the ratio and the area in one sentence: "20 biswas or 1 bigha is 1008.3333 square yards."
One apparent exception is worth naming because you will meet it. Tables sometimes show a kachha bigha holding 6⅔ biswas rather than twenty, including, until we corrected it, this series' own Bigha page. That figure counts pucca biswas against a kachha bigha: 9,075 ÷ 1,361.25 = 6⅔. Measured in its own kachha biswas of 453.75 sq ft, the same bigha holds exactly twenty. Mixing the two measures in one ratio is what produces the exception, and there isn't one.
What is a biswansi, and how many to a biswa? Twenty to the biswa, and 68.0625 square feet each on the pucca measure. The Supreme Court gives it as 7.5625 square yards. Below it is the kachwansi, twenty to the biswansi, at 3.403125 square feet. Four hundred biswansi and eight thousand kachwansi make one bigha.
What is the difference between kachha and pucca biswa? A factor of exactly three: the pucca biswa is 1,361.25 square feet and the kachha 453.75. The words mean standard and rough, and they describe two surveyor's rods. The ratio is attested; the usual explanation for it, that the rods stand in a ratio of √3, we could not verify from any instrument.
Is "biswa kacha" a separate unit? Not a separate unit, no. Kachha is an adjective, the same one that gives the kachha bigha, and it names the rough measure rather than a different unit, we found no official instrument using "kachha biswa" as a term of art at all. The measure itself is real and court-attested, and it is worked out in full elsewhere: its place inside Punjab's kanal system, the judgment that states the whole chain, and why its figure in square yards can never be written down exactly.
What is a biswa in Himachal Pradesh? Honestly: we do not know, and neither does any source we could find. The conventional 435.6 square feet appears in no Himachal statute, rule or manual, and two Himachal High Court judgments imply 405 and 485. Use the metric figure on your own record.
Is the biswa the same as the katha? In area, in one important case, yes. A pucca biswa and a Patna katha are both 1,361.25 square feet, because both are a twentieth of the same 27,225-square-foot bigha. They are not the same word and are not used in the same states, but the areas are identical and can be compared directly.
Can a biswa mean a share rather than an area? It did, historically. In the North-Western Provinces and Oudh a village was reckoned as twenty biswas, and a proprietor's share was expressed in biswas, biswansis and kachwansis of that whole. The practice is attested in judgments from 1902 to 1946 and ended with zamindari abolition. On a khatauni issued today, a biswa is an area.
How do I read "2 bigha 12 biswa 8 biswansi"? As one number in base twenty: 54,450 + 16,335 + 544.5 = 71,329.5 square feet, or 1.6375 acre. If any column reads 20 or more, the entry is wrong. Twenty biswa is one bigha, not "twenty".
How the arithmetic was done. Every unit was held as an exact rational fraction of a square foot and converted through the defined 1 sq ft = 0.09290304 m², rounded once at printing.
How it was checked. Every table cell recomputed from the finished text at the precision shown; every prose figure re-derived and required to be found in the prose; every decimal numeral in running text swept against the values this page's factor store can produce, with quoted court figures on a named exception list; two guard lists holding retracted claims and required repairs; and a cross-page register that reads this page alongside its nine siblings and fails if any of them contradicts another. Two contradictions with the Bigha page were found that way and are recorded at items 4 and 12 below.
How the evidence was graded. Observed: a source states the biswa itself, in an areal unit. Applied: the value is only reachable by dividing an attested bigha by twenty. Not found: no source located. The grading exists because a sibling page once published a ratio table that looked like eight independent confirmations when four were the rule's own output. Only Observed values are presented here as the biswa's value.
Sources, by claim:
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Biswa = 151.25 sq yd; biswansi = 7.5625; kachwansi = 0.378 | Supreme Court, Satish v. State of U.P., 16 July 2009, para 29 |
| The worked total of 224.98 sq yd | Same judgment, applying its own rates |
| Biswa = 151.25 sq yd in Haryana | Punjab & Haryana High Court, Sultan & Ors v. State of Haryana, 27 March 2025 |
| Kachha biswa = 50.41666 sq yd; 20 biswansi = 1 biswa; 20 biswa = 1 bigha; 96 biswa = 1 acre | P&H High Court, GMADA v. Hardip Kaur Gill, 25 February 2025, para 5.12 |
| The four-level chain in a modern record | Supreme Court, LDA v. Gopal Das, 24 July 2019 |
| 1 pucca bigha = 3 kachha bigha; record-in-kachha vs deed-in-pucca | ITAT Delhi, ACIT v. Afrin Rizvi, 20 December 2017, on a Patwari's certificate |
| Himachal recitals implying 405 and 485 sq ft | HP High Court, Ram Sain v. Hari Dass, 15 June 2024; Bhawani Dutt Sharma, 28 November 2019 |
| Himachal metrication mandate | HP Land Revenue Act 1954, s.33-A, inserted by HP Act 3 of 1996 w.e.f. 23 September 1976 |
| Biswa as a twentieth of a village | Twelve Allahabad HC and Privy Council judgments, 1902–1946, listed above |
| Patna katha = 1/32 acre | Supreme Court, Thakur Kamta Prasad Singh v. State of Bihar, AIR 1976 SC 2219, 10 March 1976 |
| Biswa as a sub-unit of the bigha "in place of Katha" | Bihar Revenue Glossary, Revenue & Land Reforms Dept., approved 13 October 2025 |
| Acquisition area stated as "16 Biswa" | Land Acquisition Collector (West), Land & Building Department, Government of NCT of Delhi; award for Mundka. We could not establish the award or notification number; see non-finding 11 |
| "less than 1.26 hectares (3.125 acres)" | Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code Rules, 2016, Rule 62(1)(b) |
| HP statutes containing neither bigha nor biswa | HP Land Revenue Act, 1954; HP Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972 |
| 1 sq ft = 0.09290304 m² | International yard and pound agreement, 1 July 1959, 24 FR 5348 |
What we could not establish, and do not assert:
One judgment we could not reconcile. The Allahabad High Court, in City Montessori School v. State of U.P. (1 February 2011), records Nazul land at Lucknow as "6 Biswas 5 Biswansis 13 Kachwansis (7188 sq.ft.)". At the pucca rate that is 8,552 sq ft, not 7,188; the implied biswa is about 1,144. We cannot explain it and we are not proposing it as a fourth value, we record it because a page that prints only the recitals agreeing with it is not telling you the truth about its evidence.
The identifier for the Delhi Mundka award. We read the award and quote its area, but could not establish an award or notification number. On this one claim we can give you the department and the village and no more.
Several government hosts (the Punjab Land Records Manual, jamabandi.nic.in's units page, a Punjab town-planning circular) were indexed but unreachable. Any may state the karam lengths at item 4.
Corrections. Every claim above names the document it rests on, so it can be checked against the document rather than against us. If a figure is wrong or an instrument has been amended, tell us. If you can point us to a Himachal Pradesh instrument that states the biswa's area, we particularly want to hear from you. It is the largest hole on this page and we would rather fill it than keep describing it.
| Conversion | 1 Biswa | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Acre | 0.03125 | Exact; Exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd |
| Ankanam | 18.90625 (Standard) | Region-specific; also 37.8125 (Tirupati) |
| Ares | 1.264642632 | Exact; 100 m², the metric are |
| Bigha | 0.05 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) | Region-specific; also 0.15 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.2 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills) · 0.078125 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai) |
| Biswa Kacha | 1.5625 (Rajasthan kachha reading) | Region-specific; also 3 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition) |
| Cent | 3.125 | Exact; One hundredth of an acre, exactly |
| Chatak | 30.25 | Exact; 5 sq yd exactly; 16 to the cottah, 968 to the acre. Reported, not stated by any instrument located |
| Decimal | 3.125 | Exact; One hundredth of an acre, exactly |
| Dhur | 20 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain)) | Region-specific; also 378.125 (Tripura) |
| Dismil | 3.125 | Exact; The decimal under another name |
| Gaj | 151.25 | Exact; The square yard, 9 sq ft |
| Gajam | 151.25 | Exact; The square yard in Telugu, 9 sq ft |
| Ground | 0.5671875 | 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 | 1.25 | Exact; 121 sq yd; 40 guntha = 1 acre exactly |
| Hectare | 0.01264642632 | Exact; 10,000 m² exactly |
| Kanal | 0.25 (Standard (66-inch karam)) | Region-specific; also 0.3025 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 0.329376 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 0.373457 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) |
| Katha | 1 (Bihar state standard) | Region-specific; also 1.890625 (West Bengal / Jharkhand) · 0.47265625 (Assam) · 0.78125 (Bihar (Chhapra)) |
| Killa | 0.03125 | Exact; The acre under its Punjabi name |
| Lessa | 9.453125 | Exact; The 12-foot mauzadari jar squared (Assam Land Records Manual r.117); 20 to a katha, 100 to a bigha |
| Marla | 5 (Standard (66-inch karam)) | Region-specific; also 6.05 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 6.587524 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 7.469136 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) |
| Murabba | 0.00125 (Punjab canal colony) | Region-specific; also 0.002 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal)) |
| Nali | 0.630208 | Recurring; 240 sq yd; 16 mutthi of 135 sq ft. No instrument located states the figure |
| Perch | 5 | Exact; 30.25 sq yd; 160 perches = 1 acre |
| Pura | 0.0236328125 | 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 | 1,264,642.632 | Exact; One ten-thousandth of a square metre |
| Square Feet | 1,361.25 | Exact; The base of this series |
| Square Inch | 196,020 | Exact; One 144th of a square foot |
| Square Karam | 45 (Standard (66-inch karam)) | Region-specific; also 54.45 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 59.287713 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 67.222222 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) |
| Square Kilometer | 0.0001264642632 | Exact; 1,000,000 m² |
| Square Meter | 126.4642632 | Exact; The SI unit of area |
| Square Mile | 0.000048828125 | 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 | 151.25 | Exact; 9 sq ft exactly |
1 biswa = 0.03125 acres, exact. An acre is exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Where the acre fits into the biswa's own record is set out in Biswa to Acre, Hectare and the Regional Units above; what follows is the arithmetic.
Acre = Biswa × 0.03125
| Biswa | Acre |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.03125 |
| 2 | 0.0625 |
| 3 | 0.09375 |
| 5 | 0.15625 |
| 10 | 0.3125 |
| 20 | 0.625 |
| 50 | 1.5625 |
| 100 | 3.125 |
| 200 | 6.25 |
| 500 | 15.625 |
| 1,000 | 31.25 |
5 biswa × 0.03125 = 0.15625 acres
Biswa = Acre × 32
1 biswa = 0.05 bigha on the UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca definition. The bigha has no single national value. It is also 0.15 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.2 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills) · 0.078125 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai) and 5 more per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Twenty biswa to the bigha, in every system that uses both, and both change size together, so the ratio is the stable part and the absolute values are not.
Bigha = Biswa × 0.05 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca)
| Biswa | Bigha (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.05 |
| 2 | 0.1 |
| 3 | 0.15 |
| 5 | 0.25 |
| 10 | 0.5 |
| 20 | 1 |
| 50 | 2.5 |
| 100 | 5 |
| 200 | 10 |
| 500 | 25 |
| 1,000 | 50 |
| Bigha definition | Where it applies | 1 bigha in sq ft | Bigha per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca (the definition used here) | Purvanchal, Awadh, Patna belt, east Rajasthan | 27,225 | 0.05 | Exact | sourced |
| UP kachha (6⅔ biswa) | West Uttar Pradesh | 9,075 | 0.15 | Exact | sourced |
| UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills | West UP, Kumaon and Garhwal hills | 6,806.25 | 0.2 | Exact | sourced |
| Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai | Marwar, Gujarat, Terai | 17,424 | 0.078125 | Exact | sourced |
| Madhya Pradesh | Madhya Pradesh | 12,000 | 0.1134375 | Exact | reported, not sourced |
| West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand | West Bengal, Assam, Ranchi | 14,400 | 0.09453125 | Exact | sourced |
| Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt | Himachal Pradesh, Rohtak, Hisar | 8,712 | 0.15625 | Exact | sourced |
| Punjab / west Haryana | Punjab, kanal belt of Haryana | 21,780 | 0.0625 | Exact | sourced |
| Haryana Ambala belt | Ambala, Gurugram, Faridabad, Karnal, Panipat | 8,100 | 0.168056 | Recurring | sourced |
Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 1 of the 9 are marked reported or no instrument located: in circulation and internally consistent, but this series could not find a rule, manual or judgment stating them. What was searched for each is recorded with that unit. Terminates? answers only whether the ratio has a finite decimal, not whether the figure behind it is verified.
To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.
5 biswa × 0.05 = 0.25 bigha
Biswa = Bigha × 20 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca)
Biswa = Bigha ÷ 0.15 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa))
Biswa = Bigha × 5 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills)
Biswa = Bigha × 12.8 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)
Biswa = Bigha ÷ 0.1134375 (Madhya Pradesh)
Biswa = Bigha ÷ 0.09453125 (West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand)
Biswa = Bigha × 6.4 (Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt)
Biswa = Bigha × 16 (Punjab / west Haryana)
Biswa = Bigha × 720/121 (Haryana Ambala belt)
1 biswa = 1.5625 biswa kacha on the Rajasthan kachha reading definition. The biswa kacha has no single national value. It is also 3 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition) per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Biswa kacha is the smaller of the two biswas, and the naming is the problem: kachha means the customary measure and pucca the standard one, so the same word describes different sizes in different districts. This series reports both readings rather than choosing one.
The ratio is the fraction 25/16, or 1.5625 exactly.
Biswa Kacha = Biswa × 1.5625 (Rajasthan kachha reading)
| Biswa | Biswa Kacha (Rajasthan kachha reading) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.5625 |
| 2 | 3.125 |
| 3 | 4.6875 |
| 5 | 7.8125 |
| 10 | 15.625 |
| 20 | 31.25 |
| 50 | 78.125 |
| 100 | 156.25 |
| 200 | 312.5 |
| 500 | 781.25 |
| 1,000 | 1,562.5 |
| Biswa Kacha definition | Where it applies | 1 biswa kacha in sq ft | Biswa Kacha per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punjab / Haryana revenue definition | Punjab, Haryana | 453.75 | 3 | Exact | sourced |
| Rajasthan kachha reading (the definition used here) | Marwar | 871.2 | 1.5625 | Exact | no instrument located |
Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 1 of the 2 are marked reported or no instrument located: in circulation and internally consistent, but this series could not find a rule, manual or judgment stating them. What was searched for each is recorded with that unit. Terminates? answers only whether the ratio has a finite decimal, not whether the figure behind it is verified.
| Biswa | Biswa Kacha (453.75 sq ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3 |
| 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 9 |
| 5 | 15 |
| 10 | 30 |
| 20 | 60 |
| 50 | 150 |
| 100 | 300 |
| 200 | 600 |
| 500 | 1,500 |
| 1,000 | 3,000 |
5 biswa × 1.5625 = 7.8125 biswa kacha
Biswa = Biswa Kacha × 0.64 (Rajasthan kachha reading)
Biswa = Biswa Kacha ÷ 3 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition)
1 biswa = 3.125 cents, exact. A cent is one hundredth of an acre, exactly.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
The Himachal biswa is conventionally 435.6 sq ft, which is exactly one cent, so a Himachal holding stated in biswa converts to Kerala cents one for one. The arithmetic is exact; the Himachal figure behind it is not sourced. No HP instrument states it,.
The ratio is the fraction 25/8, or 3.125 exactly.
Cent = Biswa × 3.125
| Biswa | Cent |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3.125 |
| 2 | 6.25 |
| 3 | 9.375 |
| 5 | 15.625 |
| 10 | 31.25 |
| 20 | 62.5 |
| 50 | 156.25 |
| 100 | 312.5 |
| 200 | 625 |
| 500 | 1,562.5 |
| 1,000 | 3,125 |
5 biswa × 3.125 = 15.625 cents
Biswa = Cent × 0.32
1 biswa = 151.25 gaj, exact. A gaj is the square yard, 9 sq ft.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Where the gaj fits into the biswa's own record is set out in Biswa to Square Feet, Gaj and Square Metres above; what follows is the arithmetic.
The ratio is the fraction 605/4, or 151.25 exactly.
Gaj = Biswa × 151.25
| Biswa | Gaj |
|---|---|
| 1 | 151.25 |
| 2 | 302.5 |
| 3 | 453.75 |
| 5 | 756.25 |
| 10 | 1,512.5 |
| 20 | 3,025 |
| 50 | 7,562.5 |
| 100 | 15,125 |
| 200 | 30,250 |
| 500 | 75,625 |
| 1,000 | 151,250 |
5 biswa × 151.25 = 756.25 gaj
Biswa = Gaj ÷ 151.25
1 biswa = 0.01264642632 hectares, exact. A hectare is 10,000 m² exactly.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Where the hectare fits into the biswa's own record is set out in Biswa to Acre, Hectare and the Regional Units above; what follows is the arithmetic.
The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/12,500,000,000, or 0.01264642632 exactly.
Hectare = Biswa × 0.01264642632
| Biswa | Hectare |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.01264642632 |
| 2 | 0.02529285264 |
| 3 | 0.03793927896 |
| 5 | 0.0632321316 |
| 10 | 0.1264642632 |
| 20 | 0.2529285264 |
| 50 | 0.632321316 |
| 100 | 1.264642632 |
| 200 | 2.529285264 |
| 500 | 6.32321316 |
| 1,000 | 12.64642632 |
5 biswa × 0.01264642632 = 0.0632321316 hectares
Biswa = Hectare ÷ 0.01264642632
1 biswa = 0.25 kanal on the Standard (66-inch karam) definition. The kanal has no single national value. It is also 0.3025 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 0.329376 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 0.373457 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Kanal = Biswa × 0.25 (Standard (66-inch karam))
| Biswa | Kanal (Standard (66-inch karam)) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.25 |
| 2 | 0.5 |
| 3 | 0.75 |
| 5 | 1.25 |
| 10 | 2.5 |
| 20 | 5 |
| 50 | 12.5 |
| 100 | 25 |
| 200 | 50 |
| 500 | 125 |
| 1,000 | 250 |
| Kanal definition | Where it applies | 1 kanal in sq ft | Kanal per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (66-inch karam) (the definition used here) | Most of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, J&K | 5,445 | 0.25 | Exact | sourced |
| Majha belt (60-inch karam) | Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran | 4,500 | 0.3025 | Exact | reported, not sourced |
| Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam) | Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur, and Kangra in Himachal | 4,132.8125 | 0.329376 | Recurring | reported, not sourced |
| Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam) | Parts of Kapurthala | 3,645 | 0.373457 | Recurring | reported, not sourced |
Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 3 of the 4 are marked reported or no instrument located: in circulation and internally consistent, but this series could not find a rule, manual or judgment stating them. What was searched for each is recorded with that unit. Terminates? answers only whether the ratio has a finite decimal, not whether the figure behind it is verified.
To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.
5 biswa × 0.25 = 1.25 kanal
Biswa = Kanal × 4 (Standard (66-inch karam))
Biswa = Kanal ÷ 0.3025 (Majha belt (60-inch karam))
Biswa = Kanal × 13,225/4,356 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam))
Biswa = Kanal × 324/121 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
1 biswa = 1 katha on the Bihar state standard definition. The katha has no single national value. It is also 1.890625 (West Bengal / Jharkhand) · 0.47265625 (Assam) · 0.78125 (Bihar (Chhapra)) and 2 more per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
The Uttar Pradesh pucca biswa and the Bihar katha are the same area, 1,361.25 square feet. Both are one twentieth of a 27,225 sq ft bigha, and the two states took the same subdivision and gave it different names. A reader crossing the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border meets one quantity under two words.
One biswa and one katha are the same area. The two words name one quantity, so no arithmetic is involved.
Katha = Biswa × 1 (Bihar state standard)
On this definition the two are one area of 1,361.25 square feet, so any quantity of biswa is the same quantity of katha, and the ladder would read 1 to 1 the whole way down.
| Katha definition | Where it applies | 1 katha in sq ft | Katha per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bihar state standard (the definition used here) | Patna, Arrah | 1,361.25 | 1 | Exact | sourced |
| West Bengal / Jharkhand | Rural West Bengal, Ranchi | 720 | 1.890625 | Exact | sourced |
| Assam | Assam (except Barak Valley) | 2,880 | 0.47265625 | Exact | sourced |
| Bihar (Chhapra) | Saran | 1,742.4 | 0.78125 | Exact | sourced |
| Bihar (Hajipur) | Vaishali | 1,901.25 | 0.715976 | Recurring | sourced |
| Bihar (Bettiah) | West Champaran | 3,267 | 0.416667 | Recurring | sourced |
To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.
5 biswa × 1 = 5 katha
Biswa = Katha × 1 (Bihar state standard)
Biswa = Katha ÷ 1.890625 (West Bengal / Jharkhand)
Biswa = Katha ÷ 0.47265625 (Assam)
Biswa = Katha × 1.28 (Bihar (Chhapra))
Biswa = Katha × 169/121 (Bihar (Hajipur))
Biswa = Katha × 2.4 (Bihar (Bettiah))
1 biswa = 5 marla on the Standard (66-inch karam) definition. The marla has no single national value. It is also 6.05 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 6.587524 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 7.469136 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) and 1 more per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Marla = Biswa × 5 (Standard (66-inch karam))
| Biswa | Marla (Standard (66-inch karam)) |
|---|---|
| 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 |
| Marla definition | Where it applies | 1 marla in sq ft | Marla per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (66-inch karam) (the definition used here) | Most of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, J&K | 272.25 | 5 | Exact | sourced |
| Majha belt (60-inch karam) | Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran | 225 | 6.05 | Exact | reported, not sourced |
| Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam) | Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur, and Kangra in Himachal | 206.640625 | 6.587524 | Recurring | reported, not sourced |
| Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam) | Parts of Kapurthala | 182.25 | 7.469136 | Recurring | reported, not sourced |
| HSVP urban estate | Haryana urban estates | 225 | 6.05 | Exact | sourced |
Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 3 of the 5 are marked reported or no instrument located: in circulation and internally consistent, but this series could not find a rule, manual or judgment stating them. What was searched for each is recorded with that unit. Terminates? answers only whether the ratio has a finite decimal, not whether the figure behind it is verified.
To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.
5 biswa × 5 = 25 marla
Biswa = Marla × 0.2 (Standard (66-inch karam))
Biswa = Marla ÷ 6.05 (Majha belt (60-inch karam))
Biswa = Marla × 2,645/17,424 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam))
Biswa = Marla × 81/605 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Biswa = Marla ÷ 6.05 (HSVP urban estate)
1 biswa = 0.00125 murabba on the Punjab canal colony definition. The murabba has no single national value. It is also 0.002 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal)) per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Murabba = Biswa × 0.00125 (Punjab canal colony)
| Biswa | Murabba (Punjab canal colony) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.00125 |
| 2 | 0.0025 |
| 3 | 0.00375 |
| 5 | 0.00625 |
| 10 | 0.0125 |
| 20 | 0.025 |
| 50 | 0.0625 |
| 100 | 0.125 |
| 200 | 0.25 |
| 500 | 0.625 |
| 1,000 | 1.25 |
| Murabba definition | Where it applies | 1 murabba in sq ft | Murabba per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punjab canal colony (the definition used here) | Punjab, Haryana canal colonies | 1,089,000 | 0.00125 | Exact | reported, not sourced |
| Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal) | Sri Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Bikaner, Jaisalmer | 680,625 | 0.002 | Exact | sourced |
Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 1 of the 2 are marked reported or no instrument located: in circulation and internally consistent, but this series could not find a rule, manual or judgment stating them. What was searched for each is recorded with that unit. Terminates? answers only whether the ratio has a finite decimal, not whether the figure behind it is verified.
To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.
5 biswa × 0.00125 = 0.00625 murabba
Biswa = Murabba × 800 (Punjab canal colony)
Biswa = Murabba × 500 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal))
1 biswa = 0.630208 nali, recurring. A nali is 240 sq yd; 16 mutthi of 135 sq ft. No instrument located states the figure.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
The nali belongs to a terrace system and the biswa to a bigha system, and the two meet only through square feet. Where a Kumaon record carries both, the biswa in it is the five-biswa hill reading, not the Uttar Pradesh pucca one.
The ratio is the fraction 121/192, 0.63020833…, which recurs.
Nali = Biswa × 121/192
| Biswa | Nali |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.630208 |
| 2 | 1.260417 |
| 3 | 1.890625 |
| 5 | 3.151042 |
| 10 | 6.302083 |
| 20 | 12.604167 |
| 50 | 31.510417 |
| 100 | 63.020833 |
| 200 | 126.041667 |
| 500 | 315.104167 |
| 1,000 | 630.208333 |
5 biswa × 121/192 = 3.151042 nali
Biswa = Nali × 192/121
1 biswa = 1,361.25 square feet, exact. A square foot is the base of this series.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Four values, none national: 1,361.25 square feet in the UP and east-Rajasthan pucca reading, 871.2 in Marwar, 453.75 in Punjab and Haryana, 435.6 in Himachal. Two of the four are attested by a court and two are not: the UP pucca biswa by the Supreme Court in Satish v. State of U.P. (2009), and the Punjab biswa by the P&H High Court in GMADA v. Hardip Kaur Gill (2025). No instrument was located for the Marwar or the Himachal reading..
Where the square foot fits into the biswa's own record is set out in Biswa to Square Feet, Gaj and Square Metres above; what follows is the arithmetic.
The ratio is the fraction 5,445/4, or 1,361.25 exactly.
Square Feet = Biswa × 1,361.25
| Biswa | Square Feet |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,361.25 |
| 2 | 2,722.5 |
| 3 | 4,083.75 |
| 5 | 6,806.25 |
| 10 | 13,612.5 |
| 20 | 27,225 |
| 50 | 68,062.5 |
| 100 | 136,125 |
| 200 | 272,250 |
| 500 | 680,625 |
| 1,000 | 1,361,250 |
5 biswa × 1,361.25 = 6,806.25 square feet
Biswa = Square Feet ÷ 1,361.25
1 biswa = 45 square karam on the Standard (66-inch karam) definition. The square karam has no single national value. It is also 54.45 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 59.287713 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 67.222222 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) per biswa. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
Square Karam = Biswa × 45 (Standard (66-inch karam))
| Biswa | Square Karam (Standard (66-inch karam)) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 45 |
| 2 | 90 |
| 3 | 135 |
| 5 | 225 |
| 10 | 450 |
| 20 | 900 |
| 50 | 2,250 |
| 100 | 4,500 |
| 200 | 9,000 |
| 500 | 22,500 |
| 1,000 | 45,000 |
| Square Karam definition | Where it applies | 1 square karam in sq ft | Square Karam per biswa | Terminates? | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (66-inch karam) (the definition used here) | Most of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, J&K | 30.25 | 45 | Exact | sourced |
| Majha belt (60-inch karam) | Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran | 25 | 54.45 | Exact | reported, not sourced |
| Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam) | Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur, and Kangra in Himachal | 22.960069 | 59.287713 | Recurring | reported, not sourced |
| Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam) | Parts of Kapurthala | 20.25 | 67.222222 | Recurring | reported, not sourced |
Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 3 of the 4 are marked reported or no instrument located: in circulation and internally consistent, but this series could not find a rule, manual or judgment stating them. What was searched for each is recorded with that unit. Terminates? answers only whether the ratio has a finite decimal, not whether the figure behind it is verified.
To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.
5 biswa × 45 = 225 square karam
Biswa = Square Karam ÷ 45 (Standard (66-inch karam))
Biswa = Square Karam ÷ 54.45 (Majha belt (60-inch karam))
Biswa = Square Karam × 2,645/156,816 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam))
Biswa = Square Karam × 9/605 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
1 biswa = 126.4642632 square metres, exact. A square metre is the SI unit of area.
Computed on the UP / Rajasthan pucca biswa of 1,361.25 square feet, one of 4 definitions this series carries for this unit.
The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/1,250,000, or 126.4642632 exactly.
Square Meter = Biswa × 126.4642632
| Biswa | Square Meter |
|---|---|
| 1 | 126.4642632 |
| 2 | 252.9285264 |
| 3 | 379.3927896 |
| 5 | 632.321316 |
| 10 | 1,264.642632 |
| 20 | 2,529.285264 |
| 50 | 6,323.21316 |
| 100 | 12,646.42632 |
| 200 | 25,292.85264 |
| 500 | 63,232.1316 |
| 1,000 | 126,464.2632 |
5 biswa × 126.4642632 = 632.321316 square metres
Biswa = Square Meter ÷ 126.4642632
Exactness of the method is not exactness of the result: where a ratio does not terminate, the table says so and the formula gives the fraction.
1 biswa = 20 dhur on the Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain) definition; 378.125 on the Tripura definition. Dhur = Biswa × 20 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain)) · reverse Biswa = Dhur × 0.05
| Biswa | Dhur (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain)) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 20 |
| 2 | 40 |
| 3 | 60 |
| 5 | 100 |
| 10 | 200 |
| 20 | 400 |
| 50 | 1,000 |
| 100 | 2,000 |
| 200 | 4,000 |
| 500 | 10,000 |
| 1,000 | 20,000 |
Every definition as a factor. Multiply biswa by the figure shown.
| Dhur definition | Where | Dhur per biswa |
|---|---|---|
| Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain) (the definition used here); reported, not sourced | Patna belt, and Jharkhand districts counting in the Patna katha | 20 |
| Tripura | Tripura | 378.125 |
1 biswa = 18.90625 ankanam on the Standard definition; 37.8125 on the Tirupati definition. Ankanam = Biswa × 18.90625 (Standard) · reverse Biswa = Ankanam ÷ 18.90625
| Biswa | Ankanam (Standard) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 18.90625 |
| 2 | 37.8125 |
| 3 | 56.71875 |
| 5 | 94.53125 |
| 10 | 189.0625 |
| 20 | 378.125 |
| 50 | 945.3125 |
| 100 | 1,890.625 |
| 200 | 3,781.25 |
| 500 | 9,453.125 |
| 1,000 | 18,906.25 |
Every definition as a factor. Multiply biswa by the figure shown.
| Ankanam definition | Where | Ankanam per biswa |
|---|---|---|
| Standard (the definition used here) | Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, parts of Karnataka | 18.90625 |
| Tirupati | Tirupati and parts of Chittoor | 37.8125 |
1 biswa = 1.264642632 ares (exact). Ares = Biswa × 1.264642632 · reverse Biswa = Ares ÷ 1.264642632
| Biswa | Ares |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.264642632 |
| 2 | 2.529285264 |
| 3 | 3.793927896 |
| 5 | 6.32321316 |
| 10 | 12.64642632 |
| 20 | 25.29285264 |
| 50 | 63.2321316 |
| 100 | 126.4642632 |
| 200 | 252.9285264 |
| 500 | 632.321316 |
| 1,000 | 1,264.642632 |
1 biswa = 30.25 chatak (exact). Chatak = Biswa × 30.25 · reverse Biswa = Chatak ÷ 30.25
| Biswa | Chatak |
|---|---|
| 1 | 30.25 |
| 2 | 60.5 |
| 3 | 90.75 |
| 5 | 151.25 |
| 10 | 302.5 |
| 20 | 605 |
| 50 | 1,512.5 |
| 100 | 3,025 |
| 200 | 6,050 |
| 500 | 15,125 |
| 1,000 | 30,250 |
1 biswa = 0.5671875 ground (exact). Ground = Biswa × 0.5671875 · reverse Biswa = Ground ÷ 0.5671875
| Biswa | Ground |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.5671875 |
| 2 | 1.134375 |
| 3 | 1.7015625 |
| 5 | 2.8359375 |
| 10 | 5.671875 |
| 20 | 11.34375 |
| 50 | 28.359375 |
| 100 | 56.71875 |
| 200 | 113.4375 |
| 500 | 283.59375 |
| 1,000 | 567.1875 |
1 biswa = 1.25 guntha (exact). Guntha = Biswa × 1.25 · reverse Biswa = Guntha × 0.8
| Biswa | Guntha |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.25 |
| 2 | 2.5 |
| 3 | 3.75 |
| 5 | 6.25 |
| 10 | 12.5 |
| 20 | 25 |
| 50 | 62.5 |
| 100 | 125 |
| 200 | 250 |
| 500 | 625 |
| 1,000 | 1,250 |
1 biswa = 9.453125 lessa (exact). Lessa = Biswa × 9.453125 · reverse Biswa = Lessa ÷ 9.453125
| Biswa | Lessa |
|---|---|
| 1 | 9.453125 |
| 2 | 18.90625 |
| 3 | 28.359375 |
| 5 | 47.265625 |
| 10 | 94.53125 |
| 20 | 189.0625 |
| 50 | 472.65625 |
| 100 | 945.3125 |
| 200 | 1,890.625 |
| 500 | 4,726.5625 |
| 1,000 | 9,453.125 |
1 biswa = 0.0236328125 pura (exact). Pura = Biswa × 0.0236328125 · reverse Biswa = Pura ÷ 0.0236328125
| Biswa | Pura |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0236328125 |
| 2 | 0.047265625 |
| 3 | 0.0708984375 |
| 5 | 0.1181640625 |
| 10 | 0.236328125 |
| 20 | 0.47265625 |
| 50 | 1.181640625 |
| 100 | 2.36328125 |
| 200 | 4.7265625 |
| 500 | 11.81640625 |
| 1,000 | 23.6328125 |
1 biswa = 1,264,642.632 square centimeter (exact). Square Centimeter = Biswa × 1,264,642.632 · reverse Biswa = Square Centimeter ÷ 1,264,642.632
| Biswa | Square Centimeter |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1,264,642.632 |
| 2 | 2,529,285.264 |
| 3 | 3,793,927.896 |
| 5 | 6,323,213.16 |
| 10 | 12,646,426.32 |
| 20 | 25,292,852.64 |
| 50 | 63,232,131.6 |
| 100 | 126,464,263.2 |
| 200 | 252,928,526.4 |
| 500 | 632,321,316 |
| 1,000 | 1,264,642,632 |
1 biswa = 196,020 square inch (exact). Square Inch = Biswa × 196,020 · reverse Biswa = Square Inch ÷ 196,020
| Biswa | Square Inch |
|---|---|
| 1 | 196,020 |
| 2 | 392,040 |
| 3 | 588,060 |
| 5 | 980,100 |
| 10 | 1,960,200 |
| 20 | 3,920,400 |
| 50 | 9,801,000 |
| 100 | 19,602,000 |
| 200 | 39,204,000 |
| 500 | 98,010,000 |
| 1,000 | 196,020,000 |
1 biswa = 0.0001264642632 square kilometer (exact). Square Kilometer = Biswa × 0.0001264642632 · reverse Biswa = Square Kilometer ÷ 0.0001264642632
| Biswa | Square Kilometer |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0001264642632 |
| 2 | 0.0002529285264 |
| 3 | 0.0003793927896 |
| 5 | 0.000632321316 |
| 10 | 0.001264642632 |
| 20 | 0.002529285264 |
| 50 | 0.00632321316 |
| 100 | 0.01264642632 |
| 200 | 0.02529285264 |
| 500 | 0.0632321316 |
| 1,000 | 0.1264642632 |
1 biswa = 0.000048828125 square mile (exact). Square Mile = Biswa × 0.000048828125 · reverse Biswa = Square Mile × 20,480
| Biswa | Square Mile |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.000048828125 |
| 2 | 0.00009765625 |
| 3 | 0.000146484375 |
| 5 | 0.000244140625 |
| 10 | 0.00048828125 |
| 20 | 0.0009765625 |
| 50 | 0.00244140625 |
| 100 | 0.0048828125 |
| 200 | 0.009765625 |
| 500 | 0.0244140625 |
| 1,000 | 0.048828125 |
Six of the thirty-two units are two names for one area with another, so their figures are identical to the last digit.
1 biswa = 3.125 decimal. A decimal and a cent are the same area, 435.6 square feet, so any Biswa figure converts to the same number of either. Decimal = Biswa × 3.125 · reverse Biswa = Decimal × 0.32
1 biswa = 3.125 dismil. A dismil and a cent are the same area, 435.6 square feet, so any Biswa figure converts to the same number of either. Dismil = Biswa × 3.125 · reverse Biswa = Dismil × 0.32
1 biswa = 151.25 gajam. A gajam and a gaj are the same area, 9 square feet, so any Biswa figure converts to the same number of either. Gajam = Biswa × 151.25 · reverse Biswa = Gajam ÷ 151.25
1 biswa = 0.03125 killa. A killa and an acre are the same area, 43,560 square feet, so any Biswa figure converts to the same number of either. Killa = Biswa × 0.03125 · reverse Biswa = Killa × 32
1 biswa = 5 perches. A perch and a marla are the same area, 272.25 square feet, so any Biswa figure converts to the same number of either. Perch = Biswa × 5 · reverse Biswa = Perch × 0.2
1 biswa = 151.25 square yards. A square yard and a gaj are the same area, 9 square feet, so any Biswa figure converts to the same number of either. Square Yard = Biswa × 151.25 · reverse Biswa = Square Yard ÷ 151.25
The tables above are arithmetic, and for a biswa the arithmetic is the easy half. What decides whether the figure you started with is the right one to convert at all is Which Biswa Is Yours?.
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