Cent Converter – Cent to Square Feet, Acre, Ground & Other Indian Land Units

Written and fact-checked by Aadil Saif. Arithmetic independently re-verified · Last updated September 2026

Part of the India Land Unit Converter series.

The arithmetic is the simplest in the series: a cent is one-hundredth of an acre and nothing else. So the work went somewhere else, into the two states that actually use the word. Every figure Kerala's rules and Tamil Nadu's survey department publish for this unit was collected, converted back, and set against the exact value. Every number below was held as an exact fraction and rounded once, at the point of printing; a checking script recomputes every cell in every table, re-derives every figure quoted in the running text and confirms it appears there. Where a document could not be found, the page says so.

The Answer, First

1 cent = 435.6 square feet, exactly one-hundredth of an acre. In metric, 40.468564224 square metres, an exact figure, not a rounding. In square yards, 48.4. In Chennai grounds, 0.1815.

Cent · Decimal · Dismil	Square feet	Square metres	Acres	Square yards
1	435.6	40.468564	0.01	48.4
2	871.2	80.937128	0.02	96.8
3	1,306.8	121.405693	0.03	145.2
5	2,178	202.342821	0.05	242
10	4,356	404.685642	0.1	484
20	8,712	809.371284	0.2	968
25	10,890	1,011.714106	0.25	1,210
50	21,780	2,023.428211	0.5	2,420
75	32,670	3,035.142317	0.75	3,630
100	43,560	4,046.856422	1	4,840

100 cents make an acre. That is the entire definition of the unit, and it is why the acre column above is the only clean one on this page.

The cent is the working unit of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the word people quote prices in, and the word in Kerala's assignment rules. It is not the unit your record is written in. A Kerala ReLIS extract and a Tamil Nadu chitta both print hectares, ares and square metres, and Kerala's land tax is levied per are. Converting between the two is most of what this page does.

If a Kerala or Tamil Nadu document gives you 435, or 40.5, or "10 ares" for twenty-five cents, it has rounded, and one of those roundings is out by more than one per cent.

Convert The answer, first · To square feet and square metres · To acre, hectare and the metric units · To ground, ankanam, are and the southern units · To square inch, centimetre, kilometre and mile

Understand The same area under another name · Six government statements, none exact · Kerala's two cents · Three mistakes · If your two documents disagree

Check FAQ · Sources and method

Convert to a specific unit: Acre · Ankanam · Ares · Bigha · Biswa · Biswa Kacha · 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.

Cent to Other Units – Quick Conversion Formula

Every factor is a cent's own size, 435.6 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
Cent to Acre	Cent × 0.01	Exact
Cent to Ankanam	Cent × 6.05	Exact · Ankanam is regional. This row is the Standard; also 12.1
Cent to Ares	Cent × 0.40468564224	Exact
Cent to Bigha	Cent × 0.016	Exact · Bigha is regional. This row is the UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca; also 0.048, 0.064, 0.025 and 5 more
Cent to Biswa	Cent × 0.32	Exact · Biswa is regional. This row is the UP / Rajasthan pucca; also 0.5, 0.96, 1
Cent to Biswa Kacha	Cent × 0.96	Exact · Biswa Kacha is regional. This row is the Punjab / Haryana revenue; also 0.5
Cent to Chatak	Cent × 9.68	Exact
Cent to Decimal	Cent × 1	Exact
Cent to Dhur	Cent × 6.4	Exact · Dhur is regional. This row is the Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain); also 121
Cent to Dismil	Cent × 1	Exact
Cent to Gaj	Cent × 48.4	Exact
Cent to Gajam	Cent × 48.4	Exact
Cent to Ground	Cent × 0.1815	Exact
Cent to Guntha	Cent × 0.4	Exact
Cent to Hectare	Cent × 0.0040468564224	Exact
Cent to Kanal	Cent × 0.08	Exact · Kanal is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 0.0968, 0.1054, 0.119506
Cent to Katha	Cent × 0.32	Exact · Katha is regional. This row is the Bihar state standard; also 0.605, 0.15125, 0.25 and 2 more
Cent to Killa	Cent × 0.01	Exact
Cent to Lessa	Cent × 3.025	Exact
Cent to Marla	Cent × 1.6	Exact · Marla is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 1.936, 2.108008, 2.390123 and 1 more
Cent to Murabba	Cent × 0.0004	Exact · Murabba is regional. This row is the Punjab canal colony; also 0.00064
Cent to Nali	Cent × 121/600	Recurring
Cent to Perch	Cent × 1.6	Exact
Cent to Pura	Cent × 0.0075625	Exact
Cent to Square Centimeter	Cent × 404,685.64224	Exact
Cent to Square Feet	Cent × 435.6	Exact
Cent to Square Inch	Cent × 62,726.4	Exact
Cent to Square Karam	Cent × 14.4	Exact · Square Karam is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 17.424, 18.972068, 21.511111
Cent to Square Kilometer	Cent × 0.000040468564224	Exact
Cent to Square Meter	Cent × 40.468564224	Exact
Cent to Square Mile	Cent × 0.000015625	Exact
Cent to Square Yard	Cent × 48.4	Exact

The Same Area Under Another Name, and Which Page to Read

Before the arithmetic, the question that brings most people here from outside the south: is a cent the same as a decimal, or a dismil?

Yes. All of them are one-hundredth of an acre, so all of them are 435.6 square feet. There is no version of this area that is a different size, and any converter giving different numbers for the three is wrong.

What differs is not the size. It is the state, the instrument, the record system and the units sitting next to it, and those differ enough that each word has its own page in this series.

The word	Where it is the working unit	Its own page	What states its size there
Cent	Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and market talk in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana	this page	Kerala Land Assignment Rules 1964, rr. 6 and 14; Tamil Nadu Survey and Settlement Department conversion table
Decimal	Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam	Decimal Converter	Chota Nagpur Tenancy Rules 1959; DILRMP Guidelines §5.3.1
Dismil	Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh	Dismil Converter	Bihar Revenue Glossary
Shatak, শতক	Bengali speech	covered on the Decimal Converter	No instrument located

So: if your document says decimal or dismil, the number here is correct for you, but the Decimal and Dismil pages carry the instruments, record systems and neighbouring units you will actually need. This page is about the cent as Kerala and Tamil Nadu use it.

One historical note, because it explains why an American word ended up in Travancore. The cent is the surveyor's hundredth of an acre, and it entered south Indian revenue practice alongside the acre itself. It never had to be invented locally, and it never had to be defined: a hundredth of an acre has only one possible size.

Cent to Square Feet and Square Metres

Multiply by 435.6 for square feet. Multiply by 40.468564224 for square metres. Both are exact: this is one of the few conversions in the series where nothing is approximated, because the cent is defined as a fraction of the acre and the acre is defined exactly in both systems.

Cent · Decimal · Dismil	Square feet	Square metres
1	435.6	40.4686
2	871.2	80.9371
3	1,306.8	121.4057
4	1,742.4	161.8743
5	2,178	202.3428
6	2,613.6	242.8114
8	3,484.8	323.7485
10	4,356	404.6856
12	5,227.2	485.6228
15	6,534	607.0285
20	8,712	809.3713
25	10,890	1,011.7141
30	13,068	1,214.0569
40	17,424	1,618.7426
50	21,780	2,023.4282
60	26,136	2,428.1139
75	32,670	3,035.1423
80	34,848	3,237.4851
100	43,560	4,046.8564
150	65,340	6,070.2846
200	87,120	8,093.7128
250	108,900	10,117.1411
500	217,800	20,234.2821
1,000	435,600	40,468.5642

Square feet back to cents

Divide by 435.6. This direction does not terminate: 1,000 square feet is 2.295684… cents, going on for ever. Round at the end, not in the middle.

Square feet	Cent · Decimal · Dismil
100	0.229568
250	0.573921
435.6	1
500	1.147842
1,000	2.295684
2,000	4.591368
2,500	5.73921
4,356	10
5,000	11.478421
10,000	22.956841
21,780	50
43,560	100

The mental anchors: a cent is a little over 435 square feet, a square 20.871 feet on a side, so think of it as a shade under 21 by 21. Ten cents is 4,356 square feet. A hundred is an acre. And 1,000 square feet is a bit under 2.3 cents, which is the fastest way to sanity-check a builder's quoted area.

Six Government Statements of the Cent. None of Them Exact.

Two governments use this word in their own documents: Kerala, in the rules that cap what land may be assigned, and Tamil Nadu, in the survey department's published conversion table. Between them they state the cent's size six times.

Source	What it says, verbatim	Implied 1 cent	Error
TN Survey & Settlement table	"1 acre = 4046.82 square metres"	40.4682 m²	-0.0009%
Kerala Land Assignment Rules, r.14(2)	"50 cents [20.23 ares]"	40.46 m²	-0.0212%
Kerala Land Assignment Rules, r.6(2)	"twenty-five cents (10.12 ares)"	40.48 m²	+0.0283%
TN Survey & Settlement table	"1 cent = 435 square feet"	40.4128 m²	-0.1377%
TN Survey & Settlement table	"1 ground = 5.5 cent"	40.5395 m²	+0.1753%
Kerala Land Assignment Rules, r.6(1)	"twenty five cents (10 ares)"	40 m²	-1.1578%
The cent	one-hundredth of an acre	40.468564224 m²	n/a

Not one of the six is right. They are wrong by different amounts and in different directions, from nine ten-thousandths of a per cent to more than one per cent, and the spread between the highest and the lowest is 1.3332% of the unit. Nothing on the face of any of these documents tells you that a figure has been rounded, or how hard.

That is not a scandal. Five of the six are ordinary conversions rounded for print, and on a single house plot the difference is a few square feet. It matters for two reasons, both practical.

First, the errors compound when you chain them. Convert an acre by treating it as a hundred cents of 40.47 square metres each and you arrive at 4,047 square metres; an acre is 4,046.856422. Convert a 40-acre block that way and you have invented most of a cent out of nothing.

Second, one of the six is not a rounding at all. It is out by 1.1578%, it sits in the sub-rule that governs how much land a family without any may be assigned as a house site, and it is the subject of the next section.

What Tamil Nadu's own page implies, three different ways

The Tamil Nadu Survey and Settlement Department publishes a single conversion table. Three of its entries touch this unit, and each implies a different cent:

"1 acre = 4046.82 square metres" implies a cent of 40.4682 m², almost exact, and the best figure any government publishes for it.
"1 cent = 435 square feet" implies 40.4128 m², the exact figure truncated, low by 0.1377%.
"1 ground = 5.5 cent" implies 40.5395 m², high by 0.1753%, because a ground is 5.509642 cents and 5.5 is a convenient shortening.

All three are on the same page, published by the same department. A reader who takes the acre line and a reader who takes the ground line will disagree about the size of a cent by about a tenth of a square metre, and neither will know why.

The practical rule: use the acre. It is the only one of the three defined exactly, the department's own figure for it is accurate to seven significant figures, and every other conversion on this page can be derived from it.

Kerala's Two Cents

The cent is not merely quoted in Kerala; it is the operative measure of a statutory ceiling. Rule 6 of the Kerala Land Assignment Rules, 1964 caps a house-site assignment at "twenty five cents"; rule 14 caps a lease at "50 cents". These are not glossary entries. They are the limits themselves, and what a family is entitled to turns on them.

The Rules never define a cent. What they do is print a metric figure in brackets beside it, and rule 6 does that twice, for the same extent, and gets two different answers.

	r.6(1), house site for a family	r.6(2), land for beneficial enjoyment
What the rule says	"shall not exceed twenty five cents (10 ares)"	"shall not exceed... twenty-five cents (10.12 ares)"
The metric figure implies 1 cent =	40 m²	40.48 m²
A cent is	40.468564 m²	40.468564 m²
25 cents, correctly	1,011.7141 m²	1,011.7141 m²
25 cents, as the bracket states it	1,000 m²	1,012 m²
Bracket minus the true area	-11.71 m²	+0.29 m²
Significant figures in the bracket	One	Four

Sub-rule (1) caps a family's house site at twenty five cents and glosses that as ten ares. Sub-rule (2) caps land granted for the beneficial enjoyment of an adjoining holding at twenty-five cents and glosses that as 10.12 ares. Twenty-five cents is 10,890 square feet, or 1,011.7141 square metres. The second bracket is right to four significant figures. The first is short by 11.71 square metres, 126.09 square feet, on the ceiling that applies to a landless family's house site.

This is not the ordinary rounding you would expect

It would be easy to file this under "old rules round loosely". The rest of the same rule-set says otherwise. Set every metric figure in these Rules beside its exact value and the outlier is obvious, the others land within a few hundredths of one per cent or better:

Rule	Imperial extent	Metric figure as printed	Exact value	Error
r.6(1)	twenty five cents	10 ares	10.117141 ares	-1.1578%
r.6(2)	twenty-five cents	10.12 ares	10.117141 ares	+0.0283%
r.14(1)	three acres	1.2141 hectares	1.214057 hectares	+0.0035%
r.14(2)	50 cents	20.23 ares	20.234282 ares	-0.0212%
r.14(6)	three acres	1.2141 hectares	1.214057 hectares	+0.0035%
r.14(6)	five acres	2.0234 hectares	2.023428 hectares	-0.0014%
r.14(6)	ten acres	4.0468 hectares	4.046856 hectares	-0.0014%

Six of the seven brackets are right to four or five significant figures. The seventh (the one attached to the cent, in the sub-rule that matters most to the poorest applicant) is right to one, and is out by 1.1578%. Whoever converted three acres to 1.2141 hectares was working carefully. Whoever wrote "10 ares" beside twenty-five cents was not converting at all; they were writing down a round number.

We are not going to tell you what follows from that legally, because we do not know and found no judgment on it. What we can tell you is what the two figures are, that they are in the same rule, and how far apart they sit.

The tax is in ares; the market is in cents

Kerala compounds this by taxing land in a unit nobody quotes. Section 6 of the Kerala Land Tax Act, 1961 fixes basic tax "at the rate of one rupee in Panchayat areas, two rupees in Town Panchayats and Municipal Council areas and four rupees in Municipal Corporation areas, per Are per annum", with a reduced rate for holdings not exceeding "twenty ares in a Panchayat area, six ares in a Town Panchayat or Municipal Council area", and a later provision setting the rate from 1983-84 at "twenty rupees per hectare per annum".

Every one of those thresholds is a number a Kerala landowner has to convert before it means anything:

20 ares is 49.4211 cents, the small-holding line in a panchayat area.
6 ares is 14.8263 cents, the same line in a municipality.
One hectare, the exemption threshold in the later provision, is 247.1054 cents.

None of them is a round number of cents, and none of them ever will be, because ares and cents are built on different base units. A holding of fifty cents in a panchayat is over the twenty-are line by a little more than half a cent, the kind of margin that is invisible until someone computes it.

To Acre, Hectare and the Metric Units

This unit is a fraction of the acre by definition, so the acre column is the only one on this page that is trivially round. Everything metric is exact but untidy.

Cents	Acres	Hectares	Ares	Square metres
1	0.01	0.004047	0.4047	40.47
5	0.05	0.020234	2.0234	202.34
10	0.1	0.040469	4.0469	404.69
20	0.2	0.080937	8.0937	809.37
25	0.25	0.101171	10.1171	1,011.71
40	0.4	0.161874	16.1874	1,618.74
50	0.5	0.202343	20.2343	2,023.43
75	0.75	0.303514	30.3514	3,035.14
100	1	0.404686	40.4686	4,046.86
200	2	0.809371	80.9371	8,093.71
247	2.47	0.999574	99.9574	9,995.74
500	5	2.023428	202.3428	20,234.28
1,000	10	4.046856	404.6856	40,468.56

The 247-cent row is there because 247 cents is the closest whole number of cents to a hectare, 0.999574 of one. A hectare is 247.1054 cents, and the difference matters on anything larger than a smallholding.

Going the other way is what a Kerala or Tamil Nadu reader usually needs. Your record will not show cents at all. A Kerala ReLIS extract and a Tamil Nadu chitta or patta both print the extent in hectares, ares and square metres; the cent is a market word that never reaches the page. Multiply hectares by 247.1054, ares by 2.471054, or square metres by 0.0247105381 to get cents. A record reading 0.0405 hectare is 10.008 cents; one reading 4 ares is 9.884 cents. Outside the south the position reverses, Bihar Bhumi and JharBhoomi print acres and decimals directly, which is why those readers are better served by the Dismil and Decimal pages.

To Ground, Ankanam, Are and the Southern Units

Unit	1 cent =	1 unit = cents
Ground, Chennai and Tamil Nadu	0.1815	5.509642
Ankanam, coastal Andhra	6.05	0.165289
Kuncham, Andhra Pradesh	0.1	10
Guntha, Karnataka, Maharashtra	0.4	2.5
Are, the Kerala tax unit	0.404686	2.471054
Hectare	0.004047	247.105381
Square yard / gajam	48.4	0.020661
Square metre	40.468564	0.024711
Cawnie / kani, Madras	0.007563	132.231405

Two rows are exactly round, and both for the same reason. A kuncham is exactly 10 cents and a guntha is exactly 2.5 cents. The kuncham is a tenth of an acre and the guntha a fortieth, so against a hundredth they divide without remainder. Any unit defined as a fraction of the acre converts to cents cleanly; nothing else on this page does.

The Chennai ground is the one to watch. It is 2,400 square feet, which is 5.509642 cents, and the Tamil Nadu survey department's own table calls it 5.5. On a single ground the shortcut costs 4.2 square feet. On a ten-ground plot in a city where land is quoted per ground, it costs 42, and it is one of the six roundings above.

The Madras cawnie or kani is included because it still appears in old south Indian title documents: 57,600 square feet, 132.231405 cents, a little over 1.3 acres.

To Square Inch, Square Centimetre, Square Kilometre and Square Mile

All four are exact. They terminate because the square foot is exactly 0.09290304 square metre and a cent is exactly 435.6 square feet, two terminating decimals multiplied.

Unit	1 cent · decimal · dismil =
Square inch	62,726.4
Square centimetre	404,685.64224
Square kilometre	0.000040468564224
Square mile	0.000015625

Three Mistakes That Change the Answer

1. Using 435 instead of 435.6. The Tamil Nadu Survey and Settlement Department's own conversion table publishes "1 cent = 435 square feet". It is the exact figure truncated, and it costs 15 square feet on a 25-cent plot and 60 square feet on an acre. On a single house site that is nothing. On a layout of a hundred plots it is a plot's worth of frontage. Use 435.6.

2. Calling a ground five and a half cents. It is 5.509642. The Tamil Nadu survey department's own table rounds it, and the market repeats the rounding. A Chennai plot advertised as "ten grounds, about 55 cents" is 55.09642 cents, nearly a tenth of a cent adrift, on a purchase where a cent is the unit the price is set in.

3. Chaining through a rounded metric figure. Rules and departmental tables gloss an imperial extent with a metric one, and the gloss is a convenience, not a definition. Convert an acre as a hundred cents of 40.47 square metres each and you arrive at 4,047 square metres, which is 0.1436 square metre more than an acre. An acre is 4,046.856422 square metres. On one plot that is nothing; across a forty-acre layout it is most of a cent invented from rounding alone. Convert from the acre, once, at the end.

If Your Two Documents Disagree

This page has shown one unit stated six ways by two governments, none of them exactly. That leaves a practical question it would be evasive not to answer.

Use 435.6 square feet, and 40.468564224 square metres, for every calculation. Not 435, not 40.5, not 40. Those are roundings particular departments published, and none is a competing definition. The unit is one-hundredth of an acre; the acre is exactly 43,560 square feet; the foot is exactly 0.3048 metre. There is no second opinion available.

Where an instrument states an extent in words and glosses it in metric, the words are the limit. Kerala's rule 6(1) caps a house site at "twenty five cents" and adds "(10 ares)". Those are not two ceilings, one generous and one mean. They are one ceiling described twice, and the second description is short by 11.71 square metres. Read the bracket as an aid to the reader, which is what it is, and if an office treats the bracket as the operative figure, that is the point at which to ask, in writing, which of the two limits in sub-rule (1) is being applied and on what authority. We found no judgment on the question and cannot tell you how it would be answered.

Where your record is metric and your negotiation is in cents, convert once, from the acre. A hectare is 247.1054 cents, an are is 2.471054, a square metre is 0.0247105381. Do not go via a rounded intermediate, and do not accept a figure that has been through two conversions without being told so.

And if a document uses a different word (decimal, dismil, shatak) the area is already identical. There is no conversion to do between them. What changes with the word is the paperwork around it, which is what the Decimal and Dismil pages are for.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many square feet is 1 cent? 435.6 square feet. In metric, 40.468564224 square metres exactly. In square yards, 48.4. In Chennai grounds, 0.1815.

How many cents are in an acre? Exactly 100. That is the definition of the unit rather than the result of converting anything, which is why the acre column is the only clean one on this page.

Is a cent the same as a decimal or a dismil? Yes: the same area under a different regional name, and the same as the Bengali shatak. What changes is the state, the record system and the units alongside it. See the Decimal and Dismil pages.

How many cents in a ground? 5.509642, not 5.5. A ground is 2,400 square feet. The Tamil Nadu survey department's own table publishes the rounded figure; on ten grounds it is nearly a tenth of a cent out.

How many cents in a hectare? In an are? 247.1054 cents in a hectare and 2.471054 in an are. Neither is round and neither ever will be, because ares and cents are built on different base units. The are on the metre, the cent on the acre and therefore the foot.

Is the cent an official unit anywhere? It is the operative measure in the Kerala Land Assignment Rules, 1964, which cap a house-site assignment at twenty five cents and a lease at fifty. That is as official as this unit gets. It is not a legal unit of measurement, the Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules, 2011 give that status to the square metre, with the are and hectare temporarily accepted alongside it, and the cent appears on neither list. What Kerala's Rules do not do is define it; they print a bracketed metric figure beside it, and the two brackets in rule 6 disagree with each other.

Why does my Kerala or Tamil Nadu record not show cents at all? Because the record is metric. A Kerala ReLIS extract and a Tamil Nadu chitta or patta print hectares, ares and square metres, and Kerala's basic tax is levied per are. The cent is the market's word, not the register's. Multiply hectares by 247.1054, ares by 2.471054, or square metres by 0.0247105381.

Why do some government sources say 435 square feet? Because they have truncated. The Tamil Nadu Survey and Settlement Department's conversion table publishes 435; the exact figure is 435.6. Six government statements of this unit are compared above, and they range from 40 square metres to 40.5395, a spread of 1.3332%. None of the six is exact.

Sources and Method

What each figure rests on

Statement	Source
1 cent = 1/100 acre = 435.6 sq ft = 40.468564224 m²	Definitional: the acre of 43,560 sq ft and the international foot of 0.3048 m
"twenty five cents (10 ares)"; "twenty-five cents (10.12 ares)"	Kerala Land Assignment Rules, 1964, r. 6(1) and r. 6(2)
"50 cents [20.23 ares]"; "three acres [1.2141 hectares]"	Kerala Land Assignment Rules, 1964, r. 14(2) and r. 14(1)
1.2141 / 2.0234 / 4.0468 hectares for 3 / 5 / 10 acres	Kerala Land Assignment Rules, 1964, r. 14(6)
Basic tax "per Are per annum"; thresholds of twenty and six ares; "twenty rupees per hectare" from 1983-84	Kerala Land Tax Act, 1961, s. 6
"1 cent = 435 square feet"; "1 ground = 5.5 cent"; "1 acre = 4046.82 square metres"	Tamil Nadu Survey and Settlement Department, published conversion table
Square metre as the prescribed unit of area; are and hectare temporarily accepted	Legal Metrology (National Standards) Rules, 2011, r. 13 and Second Schedule; r. 17 and Sixth Schedule
1 yard = 0.9144 m exactly, from which 435.6 sq ft = 40.468564224 m²	24 FR 5348, National Bureau of Standards notice, effective 1 July 1959
Cent = decimal = dismil = shatak in area	Bihar Revenue Glossary, entries Dismil and Acre, quoted in full on the Dismil page
Regional unit sizes in the conversion tables	Each unit's own page in this series

What we looked for and did not find

Any instrument that defines the cent, as opposed to glossing it with a bracketed metric figure. Kerala's rules use the word as a limit and never state its size.
The footnote behind the metric brackets in Kerala's rule 6. The published text carries markers; the substituting notification could not be retrieved, so we do not name it.
Any judgment on the discrepancy between rule 6(1) and rule 6(2). None located, in either direction.
What crossing the twenty-are line actually costs a Kerala holder. Section 6 sets the reduced-rate threshold; we could not retrieve a current rate schedule, so we give the threshold in cents and stop there.
Any Tamil Nadu instrument, as opposed to a departmental conversion table, using the word "cent".

Method

Every value here was computed as an exact rational fraction from two stored definitions (the international foot of 0.3048 metre and the acre of 43,560 square feet), and rounded once, at printing.

A checking script recomputes every table cell from those fractions against the delivered text; re-derives every number quoted in the prose and confirms it appears there; flags any prose numeral it cannot reproduce; holds a list of claims withdrawn during drafting and fails if one reappears. A separate register checks that quantities shared with sibling pages are stated identically here.

On the sibling pages

The cent, the decimal and the dismil are the same area, and each has its own page here. They are used in different states, written into different instruments, recorded in different systems and converted against different neighbouring units. A Kerala reader needs the are and the ground, a Bihar reader the katha and the dhur, and neither needs the other's. The evidence is not duplicated: the DILRMP statement about the decimal is set out under that name, the Bihar Revenue Glossary's dismil entry under its own. Where this page needs one, it cites it rather than repeating it.

Cent Conversion Quick Reference

Conversion	1 Cent	Note
Acre	0.01	Exact; Exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd
Ankanam	6.05 (Standard)	Region-specific; also 12.1 (Tirupati)
Ares	0.40468564224	Exact; 100 m², the metric are
Bigha	0.016 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca)	Region-specific; also 0.048 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.064 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills) · 0.025 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)
Biswa	0.32 (UP / Rajasthan pucca)	Region-specific; also 0.5 (Rajasthan kachha) · 0.96 (Punjab / Haryana old records) · 1 (Himachal Pradesh)
Biswa Kacha	0.96 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition)	Region-specific; also 0.5 (Rajasthan kachha reading)
Chatak	9.68	Exact; 5 sq yd exactly; 16 to the cottah, 968 to the acre. Reported, not stated by any instrument located
Decimal	1	Exact; the same area as a cent, 435.6 sq ft, under another name
Dhur	6.4 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain))	Region-specific; also 121 (Tripura)
Dismil	1	Exact; the same area as a cent, 435.6 sq ft, under another name
Gaj	48.4	Exact; The square yard, 9 sq ft
Gajam	48.4	Exact; The square yard in Telugu, 9 sq ft
Ground	0.1815	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	0.4	Exact; 121 sq yd; 40 guntha = 1 acre exactly
Hectare	0.0040468564224	Exact; 10,000 m² exactly
Kanal	0.08 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 0.0968 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 0.1054 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 0.119506 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Katha	0.32 (Bihar state standard)	Region-specific; also 0.605 (West Bengal / Jharkhand) · 0.15125 (Assam) · 0.25 (Bihar (Chhapra))
Killa	0.01	Exact; The acre under its Punjabi name
Lessa	3.025	Exact; The 12-foot mauzadari jar squared (Assam Land Records Manual r.117); 20 to a katha, 100 to a bigha
Marla	1.6 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 1.936 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 2.108008 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 2.390123 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Murabba	0.0004 (Punjab canal colony)	Region-specific; also 0.00064 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal))
Nali	0.201667	Recurring; 240 sq yd; 16 mutthi of 135 sq ft. No instrument located states the figure
Perch	1.6	Exact; 30.25 sq yd; 160 perches = 1 acre
Pura	0.0075625	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	404,685.64224	Exact; One ten-thousandth of a square metre
Square Feet	435.6	Exact; The base of this series
Square Inch	62,726.4	Exact; One 144th of a square foot
Square Karam	14.4 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 17.424 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 18.972068 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 21.511111 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Square Kilometer	0.000040468564224	Exact; 1,000,000 m²
Square Meter	40.468564224	Exact; The SI unit of area
Square Mile	0.000015625	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	48.4	Exact; 9 sq ft exactly

Cent to Acre

1 cent = 0.01 acres, exact. An acre is exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd.

Cent to Acre Formula

Acre = Cent × 0.01

Popular Cent to Acre Conversions

Cent	Acre
1	0.01
2	0.02
3	0.03
5	0.05
10	0.1
20	0.2
50	0.5
100	1
200	2
500	5
1,000	10

Worked Example

5 cents × 0.01 = 0.05 acres

Reverse Conversion: Acre to Cent

Cent = Acre × 100

Cent to Ankanam

1 cent = 6.05 ankanam on the Standard definition. The ankanam has no single national value. It is also 12.1 (Tirupati) per cent. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

6.05 ankanam to the cent on the standard definition and 12.1 on the Tirupati one. A local rule of thumb puts it at 12.5, which matches neither.

The ratio is the fraction 121/20, or 6.05 exactly.

Cent to Ankanam Formula

Ankanam = Cent × 6.05 (Standard)

Popular Cent to Ankanam Conversions

Cent	Ankanam (Standard)
1	6.05
2	12.1
3	18.15
5	30.25
10	60.5
20	121
50	302.5
100	605
200	1,210
500	3,025
1,000	6,050

Ankanam by Region

Ankanam definition	Where it applies	1 ankanam in sq ft	Ankanam per cent	Terminates?	Evidence
Standard (the definition used here)	Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, parts of Karnataka	72	6.05	Exact	sourced
Tirupati	Tirupati and parts of Chittoor	36	12.1	Exact	sourced

Popular Cent to Ankanam, Tirupati

Cent	Ankanam (36 sq ft)
1	12.1
2	24.2
3	36.3
5	60.5
10	121
20	242
50	605
100	1,210
200	2,420
500	6,050
1,000	12,100

Worked Example

5 cents × 6.05 = 30.25 ankanam

Reverse Conversion: Ankanam to Cent

Cent = Ankanam ÷ 6.05 (Standard)

Cent = Ankanam ÷ 12.1 (Tirupati)

Cent to Biswa

1 cent = 0.32 biswa on the UP / Rajasthan pucca definition. The biswa has no single national value. It is also 0.5 (Rajasthan kachha) · 0.96 (Punjab / Haryana old records) · 1 (Himachal Pradesh) per cent. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

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 Biswa page sets out the search, so treat the identity as a property of the conventional value, not of a statutory one.

The ratio is the fraction 8/25, or 0.32 exactly.

Cent to Biswa Formula

Biswa = Cent × 0.32 (UP / Rajasthan pucca)

Popular Cent to Biswa Conversions

Cent	Biswa (UP / Rajasthan pucca)
1	0.32
2	0.64
3	0.96
5	1.6
10	3.2
20	6.4
50	16
100	32
200	64
500	160
1,000	320

Biswa by Region

Biswa definition	Where it applies	1 biswa in sq ft	Biswa per cent	Terminates?	Evidence
UP / Rajasthan pucca (the definition used here)	Uttar Pradesh, east Rajasthan	1,361.25	0.32	Exact	sourced
Rajasthan kachha	Marwar	871.2	0.5	Exact	no instrument located
Punjab / Haryana old records	Punjab, Haryana	453.75	0.96	Exact	sourced
Himachal Pradesh	Himachal Pradesh	435.6	1	Exact	no instrument located

Not every definition above rests on an instrument. 2 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.

Worked Example

5 cents × 0.32 = 1.6 biswa

Reverse Conversion: Biswa to Cent

Cent = Biswa × 3.125 (UP / Rajasthan pucca)

Cent = Biswa × 2 (Rajasthan kachha) Cent = Biswa ÷ 0.96 (Punjab / Haryana old records) Cent = Biswa × 1 (Himachal Pradesh)

Cent to Ground

1 cent = 0.1815 grounds, exact. A ground is 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)".

A ground is 5.509642… cents, recurring. Tamil Nadu uses both: the ground for urban plots in Chennai and the cent for land elsewhere in the state.

The ratio is the fraction 363/2,000, or 0.1815 exactly.

Cent to Ground Formula

Ground = Cent × 0.1815

Popular Cent to Ground Conversions

Cent	Ground
1	0.1815
2	0.363
3	0.5445
5	0.9075
10	1.815
20	3.63
50	9.075
100	18.15
200	36.3
500	90.75
1,000	181.5

Worked Example

5 cents × 0.1815 = 0.9075 grounds

Reverse Conversion: Ground to Cent

Cent = Ground ÷ 0.1815

Cent to Guntha

1 cent = 0.4 gunthas, exact. A guntha is 121 sq yd; 40 guntha = 1 acre exactly.

2.5 cents to the guntha. Both are clean divisions of the acre, a hundred and forty, so the ratio is exact in both directions.

The ratio is the fraction 2/5, or 0.4 exactly.

Cent to Guntha Formula

Guntha = Cent × 0.4

Popular Cent to Guntha Conversions

Cent	Guntha
1	0.4
2	0.8
3	1.2
5	2
10	4
20	8
50	20
100	40
200	80
500	200
1,000	400

Worked Example

5 cents × 0.4 = 2 gunthas

Reverse Conversion: Guntha to Cent

Cent = Guntha × 2.5

Cent to Hectare

1 cent = 0.0040468564224 hectares, exact. A hectare is 10,000 m² exactly.

247.105381467… cents to the hectare. Kerala records print both, because the state moved to metric measures while the market kept quoting cents.

The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/39,062,500,000, or 0.0040468564224 exactly.

Cent to Hectare Formula

Hectare = Cent × 0.0040468564224

Popular Cent to Hectare Conversions

Cent	Hectare
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

Worked Example

5 cents × 0.0040468564224 = 0.020234282112 hectares

Reverse Conversion: Hectare to Cent

Cent = Hectare ÷ 0.0040468564224

Cent to Square Feet

1 cent = 435.6 square feet, exact. A square foot is the base of this series.

435.6 square feet to the cent. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu land is advertised in cents and built area in square feet, so a buyer needs both figures for the same transaction, the plot in cents, the house on it in square feet.

Where the square foot fits into the cent's own record is set out in Cent to Square Feet and Square Metres above; what follows is the arithmetic.

The ratio is the fraction 2,178/5, or 435.6 exactly.

Cent to Square Feet Formula

Square Feet = Cent × 435.6

Popular Cent to Square Feet Conversions

Cent	Square Feet
1	435.6
2	871.2
3	1,306.8
5	2,178
10	4,356
20	8,712
50	21,780
100	43,560
200	87,120
500	217,800
1,000	435,600

Worked Example

5 cents × 435.6 = 2,178 square feet

Reverse Conversion: Square Feet to Cent

Cent = Square Feet ÷ 435.6

Cent to Square Meter

1 cent = 40.468564224 square metres, exact. A square metre is the SI unit of area.

40.468564224 square metres to the cent, exact. Kerala's records are metric and its market is not; this is the figure that reconciles them.

The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/3,906,250, or 40.468564224 exactly.

Cent to Square Meter Formula

Square Meter = Cent × 40.468564224

Popular Cent to Square Meter Conversions

Cent	Square Meter
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

Worked Example

5 cents × 40.468564224 = 202.34282112 square metres

Reverse Conversion: Square Meter to Cent

Cent = Square Meter ÷ 40.468564224

Cent to the Remaining Units

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.

Cent to Bigha

1 cent = 0.016 bigha on the UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca definition; 0.048 on the UP kachha (6⅔ biswa) definition · 0.064 on the UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills definition · 0.025 on the Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai definition · 0.0363 on the Madhya Pradesh definition · 0.03025 on the West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand definition · 0.05 on the Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt definition · 0.02 on the Punjab / west Haryana definition · 0.053778 on the Haryana Ambala belt definition. Bigha = Cent × 0.016 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) · reverse Cent = Bigha × 62.5

Cent	Bigha (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca)
1	0.016
2	0.032
3	0.048
5	0.08
10	0.16
20	0.32
50	0.8
100	1.6
200	3.2
500	8
1,000	16