Guntha Converter – Guntha to Square Feet, Acre, Hectare & 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.

Where these numbers come from. A guntha is defined by two whole numbers (33 feet on a side, forty to the acre), so every conversion here was worked as an exact fraction and rounded only at the moment of printing. The tables were then read back out of the finished page and recomputed cell by cell against those two definitions. The legal half of the page works the same way: each rule is quoted from the instrument that carries it, with the instrument's date, because on this unit the date is often the whole answer. Sources we could reach only through a mirror are marked as such at the point of use.

This page is not legal advice, and part of it has a short shelf life. Maharashtra's rules on selling small parcels changed in 2021, 2022, 2023 and again in November 2025, four times in five years. Everything legal on this page is quoted from a named instrument with its date, so you can see how current it is. Legal content last checked: September 2026. Next review due: March 2027. Before you buy or sell, check with the tahsildar's office or a lawyer rather than relying on this page.

The Unit Your State Talks In, Not the One Its Law Uses

A guntha is a square 33 feet on a side. That gives 1,089 square feet, 121 square yards, or 101.17141056 square metres, and exactly forty gunthas to the acre.

It does not vary. We looked for a guntha of any other value anywhere in India and found none. In a series where the bigha ranges nine-fold and the marla ranges by half, that is worth saying plainly at the top: wherever you meet a guntha, it is 1,089 square feet.

What has changed is everything around it.

The guntha is the unit small parcels are advertised in across Maharashtra and Karnataka: "two-guntha farmhouse plot", "five-gunta site". Those are precisely the transactions the law restricts. And the law now writes its threshold in a different unit.

Three things follow, and this page addresses each:

A guntha is not an are, and the difference is now legal, not academic. Maharashtra's minimum area for agricultural land has been stated in ares since 8 August 2023. Twenty ares is not twenty gunthas. It is 19.7684. A page still telling you "the minimum is 20 gunthas" is describing a threshold that no longer exists, in a unit the notification no longer uses. → Guntha and Are
A sale can be registered and still be void. The 2021 bar on registering sub-standard parcels was struck down in 2022, so a sub-registrar must now register the deed. Section 9 of the 1947 Act still makes the transfer void. A registered document is not a lawful transaction. → What You Are Allowed to Sell
The governing rule changed on 3 November 2025, and the change is narrower than most reports suggest. It is bounded by dates and by land use, not by size. → same section

Start here: One guntha in every unit.

Convert now One guntha in every unit · Square Feet, Square Yard and Square Meter · Acre and Hectare · Guntha and Are

Regional units Bigha, Katha, Biswa and Dhur · Cent, Ground, Marla and the rest · Square Kilometer, Square Mile, Square Inch, Square Centimeter

The part that matters more than the arithmetic What you are allowed to sell · Gunthewari · Karnataka: the gunta in the RTC · The anna: a chain nobody documents · Three mistakes

Reference Frequently asked questions · Sources and method

Convert to a specific unit: Acre · Ankanam · Ares · Bigha · Biswa · Biswa Kacha · Cent · Chatak · Decimal · Dhur · Dismil · Gaj · Gajam · Ground · 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.

Guntha to Other Units – Quick Conversion Formula

Every factor is a guntha's own size, 1,089 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
Guntha to Acre	Guntha × 0.025	Exact
Guntha to Ankanam	Guntha × 15.125	Exact · Ankanam is regional. This row is the Standard; also 30.25
Guntha to Ares	Guntha × 1.0117141056	Exact
Guntha to Bigha	Guntha × 0.0625	Exact · Bigha is regional. This row is the Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai; also 0.04, 0.12, 0.16 and 5 more
Guntha to Biswa	Guntha × 0.8	Exact · Biswa is regional. This row is the UP / Rajasthan pucca; also 1.25, 2.4, 2.5
Guntha to Biswa Kacha	Guntha × 2.4	Exact · Biswa Kacha is regional. This row is the Punjab / Haryana revenue; also 1.25
Guntha to Cent	Guntha × 2.5	Exact
Guntha to Chatak	Guntha × 24.2	Exact
Guntha to Decimal	Guntha × 2.5	Exact
Guntha to Dhur	Guntha × 16	Exact · Dhur is regional. This row is the Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain); also 302.5
Guntha to Dismil	Guntha × 2.5	Exact
Guntha to Gaj	Guntha × 121	Exact
Guntha to Gajam	Guntha × 121	Exact
Guntha to Ground	Guntha × 0.45375	Exact
Guntha to Hectare	Guntha × 0.010117141056	Exact
Guntha to Kanal	Guntha × 0.2	Exact · Kanal is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 0.242, 0.263501, 0.298765
Guntha to Katha	Guntha × 0.8	Exact · Katha is regional. This row is the Bihar state standard; also 1.5125, 0.378125, 0.625 and 2 more
Guntha to Killa	Guntha × 0.025	Exact
Guntha to Lessa	Guntha × 7.5625	Exact
Guntha to Marla	Guntha × 4	Exact · Marla is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 4.84, 5.270019, 5.975309 and 1 more
Guntha to Murabba	Guntha × 0.001	Exact · Murabba is regional. This row is the Punjab canal colony; also 0.0016
Guntha to Nali	Guntha × 121/240	Recurring
Guntha to Perch	Guntha × 4	Exact
Guntha to Pura	Guntha × 0.01890625	Exact
Guntha to Square Centimeter	Guntha × 1,011,714.1056	Exact
Guntha to Square Feet	Guntha × 1,089	Exact
Guntha to Square Inch	Guntha × 156,816	Exact
Guntha to Square Karam	Guntha × 36	Exact · Square Karam is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 43.56, 47.43017, 53.777778
Guntha to Square Kilometer	Guntha × 0.00010117141056	Exact
Guntha to Square Meter	Guntha × 101.17141056	Exact
Guntha to Square Mile	Guntha × 0.0000390625	Exact
Guntha to Square Yard	Guntha × 121	Exact

Instant Answers: One Guntha in Every Unit

One guntha in the twenty-four units a guntha figure is most often converted into. The other nine (biswa kacha, gajam, murabba, pura, square kilometre, square mile, square inch and square centimetre among them) are in the Quick Reference and in their own sections below.

Unit	1 guntha equals	Exact?
Square feet	1,089	Exact
Square yard / Gaj	121	Exact
Square metre	101.17141056	Exact
Are	1.0117141056	Exact
Cent = Decimal = Dismil	2.5	Exact
Square karam (66-in)	36	Exact
Marla / Perch (66-in)	4	Exact
Ankanam (coastal Andhra)	15.125	Exact
Chatak (West Bengal)	24.2	Exact
Lessa (Assam)	7.5625	Exact
Ground (Tamil Nadu)	0.45375	Exact
Nali (Uttarakhand)	0.50416667	Recurring
Kanal (66-in)	0.2	Exact
Kuncham (Andhra Pradesh)	0.25	Exact
Acre / Killa	0.025	Exact
Hectare	0.010117141056	Exact
Bigha · Katha · Biswa · Dhur	Region-dependent, no single value	n/a

And the same table in reverse:

Unit	Gunthas in one	Exact?
Square feet	0.00091827	Recurring
Square yard / Gaj	0.00826446	Recurring
Square metre	0.00988422	Recurring
Are	0.98842153	Recurring
Cent = Decimal = Dismil	0.4	Exact
Square karam (66-in)	0.02777778	Recurring
Marla / Perch (66-in)	0.25	Exact
Ankanam (coastal Andhra)	0.0661157	Recurring
Chatak (West Bengal)	0.04132231	Recurring
Lessa (Assam)	0.1322314	Recurring
Ground (Tamil Nadu)	2.20385675	Recurring
Nali (Uttarakhand)	1.98347107	Recurring
Kanal (66-in)	5	Exact
Kuncham (Andhra Pradesh)	4	Exact
Acre / Killa	40	Exact
Hectare	98.84215259	Recurring

The guntha is the best-connected unit in this series

Look down the Exact column of the first table. Every conversion terminates except one. Only the nali recurs.

No other unit in this series comes close:

Converting out of	Conversions that terminate exactly
Guntha	15 of 16. Only the nali recurs
Square foot	6 of 20
Hectare	3 of 21

The reason is arithmetic, and it is worth knowing because it makes the guntha genuinely useful as a checking unit.

A guntha is 33 feet square, so 1,089 square feet, and an acre is exactly 40 gunthas. That makes the guntha a clean divisor of the acre. Every other Indian unit that is also a clean divisor of the acre therefore relates to it in whole numbers or simple fractions:


1 guntha	= 4 marla exactly (a marla is 1/160 acre)
1 guntha	= 36 square karam exactly (1/1,440 acre)
1 guntha	= 2.5 cents exactly (a cent is 1/100 acre)
1 guntha	= 0.2 kanal exactly, so 5 gunthas = 1 kanal
1 guntha	= 15.125 ankanam, 24.2 chatak, 7.5625 lessa, 0.25 kuncham, all exact

Practical use. If a conversion chain through the guntha does not come out to one of these clean values, a step has gone wrong. Five gunthas should be exactly one kanal and exactly twenty marla. Forty gunthas should be exactly one acre, 43,560 square feet and 4,840 square yards. The guntha closes chains that other units leave open.

The one exception, the nali, recurs because a nali is 2,160 square feet and 1,089 ÷ 2,160 does not terminate.

Guntha to Square Feet, Square Yard and Square Meter

1 guntha = 1,089 square feet = 121 square yards = 101.17141056 square metres. All three are exact.

They are exact because a guntha is defined by a whole number of feet: 33 feet by 33 feet. Thirty-three squared is 1,089, and thirty-three feet is eleven yards, so 11² gives 121 square yards. And since a foot is exactly 0.3048 metre, the square-metre value terminates too, at eight decimal places.

Gunthas × 1,089 = square feet > Gunthas × 121 = square yards > Gunthas × 101.17141056 = square metres > Square feet ÷ 1,089 = gunthas

Gunthas	Square feet	Square yards	Square metres	Ares
1	1,089	121	101.1714	1.011714
2	2,178	242	202.3428	2.023428
3	3,267	363	303.5142	3.035142
5	5,445	605	505.8571	5.058571
10	10,890	1,210	1,011.7141	10.117141
20	21,780	2,420	2,023.4282	20.234282
30	32,670	3,630	3,035.1423	30.351423
40	43,560	4,840	4,046.8564	40.468564
80	87,120	9,680	8,093.7128	80.937128
100	108,900	12,100	10,117.1411	101.171411

Square feet to gunthas:

Square feet	Gunthas
500	0.459137
1,000	0.918274
1,089	1
2,000	1.836547
2,178	2
5,000	4.591368
5,445	5
10,000	9.182736
10,890	10
21,780	20
43,560	40

One correction worth carrying

A guntha is 121 square yards, not 120. The 120 figure circulates widely and is wrong by 9 square feet per guntha, 360 square feet on a 40-guntha acre. It is corrected in detail where the acre's own definition is set out.

The 121 figure is not a rounding of anything. It is 11 × 11, because a guntha is 11 yards square. If a source gives you 120, it has not derived the number.

Worked example. A plot advertised as "2.5 gunthas" is 2.5 × 1,089 = 2,722.5 square feet, or 302.5 square yards, or 252.93 square metres. In cents, the unit a south Indian buyer would use, it is 2.5 × 2.5 = 6.25 cents exactly, because a guntha is two and a half cents.

Guntha to Acre and Hectare

40 gunthas = 1 acre, exactly. This is the relationship the unit exists for, and it is the reason the guntha survives in states whose land records are metric.

1 hectare = 98.842153 gunthas, not 100.

That near-miss catches people. A hectare looks like it should be a round hundred gunthas, and it is not: the shortfall is 1.157847 gunthas, or 1,261 square feet. The two systems were built on different bases and do not meet on a round number anywhere.

Gunthas ÷ 40 = acres > Gunthas × 0.010117141056 = hectares > Acres × 40 = gunthas > Hectares × 98.842153 = gunthas

Gunthas	Acres	Hectares
1	0.025	0.01011714
5	0.125	0.05058571
10	0.25	0.10117141
20	0.5	0.20234282
40	1	0.40468564
80	2	0.80937128
100	2.5	1.01171411
200	5	2.02342821
400	10	4.04685642

And the other way:

Acres or hectares	Gunthas
0.25 acre	10
0.5 acre	20
1 acre	40
2 acres	80
5 acres	200
10 acres	400
0.1 hectare	9.884215
0.5 hectare	49.421076
1 hectare	98.842153
1.08 hectare (average Indian holding)	106.749525
2 hectares	197.684305
10 hectares	988.421526

Worked example, and a chain that should close. A Karnataka RTC records a holding as 3 acres 22 guntas. In gunthas that is 3 × 40 + 22 = 142 gunthas. In square feet, 142 × 1,089 = 154,638. In acres, 142 ÷ 40 = 3.55. In hectares, 3.55 × 0.40468564224 = 1.436634 hectares.

Now check it: 154,638 ÷ 43,560 = 3.55 exactly. The chain closes on a clean number, which is the sign that no step drifted. Had the acre figure come out as 3.5497 or 3.5503, a conversion factor somewhere would have been rounded.

Guntha and Are: The 1.17% That Costs Money

A guntha and an are are nearly the same size, and confusing them used to be an arithmetic problem. Since August 2023 it has been a legal one.

An are is exactly 100 square metres. A guntha is 101.17141056 square metres. The guntha is larger by 1.171411%.

	Guntha	Are	Difference
Square metres	101.17141056	100	1.17141056
Square feet	1,089	1,076.391042	12.608958
Square yards	121	119.599005	1.400995
Per acre	40	40.468564224	0.468564224
Per hectare	98.842153	100	1.157847
The guntha is larger by			1.171411%

Just over one square metre per unit. On a single plot it is negligible; the reason it matters is not the size of the gap but where the two units now sit.

Why this is no longer an academic distinction

Maharashtra's minimum area for agricultural land is now expressed in ares.

The Department of Land Records states the standard area determined under section 5 of the 1947 Act, by notification dated 8 August 2023, as 20 आर for jirayat (dry) land and 10 आर for bagayat (irrigated) land, statewide.

A reader who sees "20 आर" and reads it as twenty gunthas has the wrong number. Twenty ares is 19.7684 gunthas. Ten ares is 9.8842 gunthas. Both are smaller than the guntha figures they replaced.

There is more to it than a unit swap, and the next section sets out what actually changed.

The symbol trap

On a Maharashtra 7/12 extract the middle column is headed आर, transliterated R. That R is the are. It is not the guntha.

A widely-read online reference writes the guntha's symbol as "(R)", attaching the letter to the wrong unit. The correction is set out in full where the are's standing in Indian law is established, and it is not re-argued here. The one-line version: if a document's middle column says आर or R, the figure in it is in units of 100 square metres, and multiplying it by 1,089 will give you a square-foot figure that is 1.17% too large.

The folk equivalence "one R equals one guntha" survives in rural Maharashtra precisely because the two are so close. It is a serviceable approximation in conversation and a wrong answer on a document.

What You Are Allowed to Sell: Maharashtra's Fragmentation Law

This is the section that matters most, and the one where nearly all published guidance is now out of date.

Maharashtra restricts the sale of small agricultural parcels. The restriction has moved four times since 2021. What follows is the position in date order, with each instrument quoted and dated. It is not legal advice, and the position is still moving.

The statute names no area at all

The governing law is the Maharashtra Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947 (Bombay Act LXII of 1947), the law people call tukda bandi (तुकडेबंदी).

Its two key definitions:

s.2(4): "fragment" means "a plot of land of less extent than the appropriate standard area determined under this Act."

s.2(10): "standard area" means "the area which the State Government may from time to time determine under section 5 as the minimum area necessary for profitable cultivation."

And the prohibition:

s.8: "No land in any local area shall be transferred or partitioned so as to create a fragment."

s.7: no person shall transfer a fragment "except to the owner of a contiguous survey number or recognised sub-division of a survey number."

Section 9 makes an offending transfer or partition void, with a fine recoverable as an arrear of land revenue. Section 8AA deals with partition among co-sharers who cannot take their share without creating a fragment, they get money instead of land.

Read s.2(4) and s.2(10) together and the important point appears: the Act contains no number. It defines a fragment by reference to a "standard area" that the State Government sets by notification. The figure every blog quotes is not in the statute. It lives in a notification, which means it can move, and it has.

The threshold changed size, not just unit

Land class	Standard area before 8 Aug 2023	That area in m²	Standard area now	The new figure in gunthas
जिरायत, jirayat (dry)	1 to 2 acres	4,047 – 8,094	20 are	19.7684
बागायत, bagayat (irrigated)	20 gunthas	2,023	10 are	9.8842
भात / तरी, rice land	10 to 30 gunthas	1,012 – 3,035	n/a	n/a
वरकस, varkas	3 to 4 acres	12,141 – 16,187	n/a	n/a

The historical figures were in acres and gunthas. The current ones, by the notification of 8 August 2023, are in ares, and they are not the same quantities:

Bagayat land went from 20 gunthas (2,023.43 m²) to 10 ares (1,000 m²). The threshold more than halved.
Jirayat land went from 1 to 2 acres (4,047 to 8,094 m²) to 20 ares (2,000 m²). It fell by more than half again.

A further notification dated 17 June 2025 applied the same 10-are and 20-are standard to Akola district.

So the direction of travel is toward permitting smaller parcels, not restricting them further, which is the opposite of what a reader who has only seen the old guntha figures would assume.

2021: the registration bar

On 12 July 2021 the Inspector General of Registration and Controller of Stamps, Maharashtra, issued a circular directing sub-registrars to refuse registration of sale deeds for parcels below the standard area unless a sanctioned layout was produced. Sub-registrars relied on Rule 44(1)(i) of the Maharashtra Registration Rules, 1961:

"that if the transaction which is indented by the document, is prohibited by any existing act of Central or State Government, then the true copy of requisite permission or No Objection Certificate from the Competent Authority under the said Act, has been attached alongwith the document…"

This is what stopped one-guntha and two-guntha registrations across the state.

2022: the bar was struck down

In Govind Ramling Solpure & Others v. The State of Maharashtra & Others, Writ Petition No. 2111 of 2022, the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Bench at Aurangabad (Dhanuka and Mehare JJ.) held on 5 May 2022:

"Rule 44(1)(i) of the Maharashtra Registration Rules, 1961 is read down and is declared that the same would not be applicable. The registering authority is not required to insist compliance of the conditions imposed under Rule 44(1)(i) while registering the document under section 34 r/w. section 35 of the Registration Act, 1908."

We have not checked whether this judgment has been appealed, stayed, or overtaken by a later circular. Anyone relying on it should.

The consequence: registrable is not the same as valid

This is the single most important sentence on this page.

A sub-registrar must now register the deed. Section 9 still makes the transfer void.

Registration and validity are two different questions, decided by two different instruments, and Solpure answered only the first. Nothing in that judgment touched section 8 or section 9 of the 1947 Act. So a one-guntha agricultural sale can be registered, stamped, and entered in the record, and remain void.

	Can the deed be registered?	Is the transfer valid?
Before 12 July 2021	Yes	Void if it creates a fragment, s.8, s.9
12 July 2021 – 5 May 2022	No, without a sanctioned layout, IGR circular, Rule 44(1)(i)	Void if it creates a fragment
After 5 May 2022 (Solpure)	Yes, Rule 44(1)(i) read down	Still void if it creates a fragment
After 3 November 2025	Yes	Deemed regularised only if the transfer falls between 15 Nov 1965 and 15 Oct 2024 and the land is used or intended for bona fide non-agricultural user, s.9(4)

A registered document is not, on its own, a lawful transaction. If someone shows you a registered sale deed for a sub-standard agricultural parcel as proof that the sale was fine, the deed proves that it was registered and nothing more.

2025: deemed regularisation, with two boundaries

Maharashtra promulgated Ordinance No. X of 2025 on 2 November 2025, replaced by L.A. Bill No. XCIV of 2025, which "shall be deemed to have come into force on the 3rd November 2025."

The operative provision is a new section 9(4):

"Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, a transfer or partition of a land contrary to the provisions of this Act made on or after the 15th November 1965 and on or before the 15th October 2024, if such land is used or intended to be used for any bona fide non-agricultural user…then such transfer or partition of land shall be deemed to have been regularized without charging any premium therefor."

The amendment also deletes the proviso to s.8B and the provisos and Explanation to s.9(3). The Statement of Objects and Reasons explains why: earlier amendments had allowed regularisation on payment of a premium (25% of market value, later reduced to 5%), and uptake was poor, so the premium was dropped.

Read the two boundaries carefully, because most reporting has not.


A date window	The transfer must have been made on or after 15 November 1965 and on or before 15 October 2024. A transfer made after 15 October 2024 is outside it
A use condition	The land must be "used or intended to be used for any bona fide non-agricultural user". Open agricultural land is outside it
No size threshold	The provision says nothing about one guntha, two gunthas, or any other size

Reported scope covers municipal corporation, council and nagar panchayat limits, MMRDA, PMRDA, NMRDA, special planning authorities, growth centres and UDCPR peripheral zones, with roughly 49 lakh families expected to benefit. That scope description comes from press and practitioner sources rather than from the Bill's own text, and is presented as such.

This is not a repeal. For open agricultural land outside the date window, section 8 and section 9 stand exactly as before.

Maharashtra's Revenue Minister has been reported saying the fragmentation law would be repealed for transactions up to one guntha. No such threshold appears in Ordinance X of 2025 or Bill XCIV of 2025. A ministerial statement is not the operative rule, and this page does not treat it as one.

The two lawful routes to a small parcel

A pre-existing fragment. The prohibition in s.8 is on creating a fragment. A parcel already recorded as a separate fragment can be transferred under s.7, but only "to the owner of a contiguous survey number or recognised sub-division of a survey number." That contiguity requirement is the catch: a pre-existing fragment can be sold to the neighbour, not to anyone.

Permitted purposes. A notification of 14 March 2024 is reported to permit fragment purchase for specific purposes, a farm road (शेत रस्ता), a well or borewell (विहीर), residual land left after land acquisition, and rural housing scheme beneficiaries. This is from a revenue-practitioner reference rather than a government host, and is flagged accordingly.

If you are about to buy

This page converts numbers and quotes texts. It cannot tell you whether a particular parcel is lawful. That turns on facts about your land that only its records show. What it can do is tell you which four facts decide the question, so you know what to ask for.

What to establish	Where it comes from	Why it decides the question
The parcel's area, in the record's own units	The 7/12 extract's area block; hectare-are-square metre for agricultural land, are-square metre for non-agricultural	Everything else is measured against this. Note that the middle column is आर, the are, not the guntha
Whether the parcel already exists as a recorded sub-division, or would be carved out of a larger survey number	The 7/12 and the village record of sub-divisions	s.8 bars creating a fragment. An existing one can be transferred under s.7, but only to the owner of a contiguous survey number
The land class, jirayat or bagayat, as recorded	The 7/12's classification	The standard area differs: 20 ares for dry land, 10 ares for irrigated. Half the answer depends on which one applies
The date of the transfer you are relying on, if you are told the parcel was regularised	The prior sale deed or the mutation entry	s.9(4) reaches only transfers made between 15 November 1965 and 15 October 2024, and only where the land is used or intended for bona fide non-agricultural use

Take those four to the talathi and the tahsildar's office, and to a lawyer. Before money moves, not after.

Gunthewari: When the Unit Named a Problem

The guntha is the only unit in this series with an Act of a state legislature named after it.

The Maharashtra Gunthewari Developments (Regularisation, Upgradation and Control) Act, 2001 (Mah. XXVII of 2001) is, in its own long title, "An Act to provide for the regularisation and upgradation of certain Gunthewari developments and for the control of Gunthewari developments."

Its section 2 defines the term:

"Gunthewari development" means "plots formed by unauthorisedly sub-dividing privately owned land, with buildings, if any, on such plots, including excess vacant land under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976…"

The Act never defines a guntha

Read that definition again and notice what is missing: no area, and no mention of the unit the Act is named after. The word gunthewari is not a legal measure. It is the market's name for a practice, agricultural land at the edge of a growing town, sub-divided without permission and sold off in guntha-sized parcels, plot by plot, to buyers who then built on them.

By 2001 enough of Maharashtra's urban fringe had been built this way that the state legislated to regularise it rather than demolish it. The unit gave the practice its name, and the practice gave the Act its name. That reading follows from the definition rather than from any government statement of etymology, and is offered as such.

The cut-off date has moved once

Section 3(1) as it now stands:

"All Gunthewari developments existing as on the 31st December 2020, shall, on an application being made in this behalf by the plot-holder, to the Planning Authority, as provided in section 4, be eligible for being considered by the Planning Authority for regularisation."

The original Act read 1 January 2001; the twenty-year extension to 31 December 2020 was substituted by amendment. We could not obtain the number and year of the amending Act, India Code returned 404 on every route, so the substitution is reported from the amended text rather than from the amending instrument.

Section 3 then excludes seven categories from regularisation, among them the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Scheduled Areas, forest land and the Coastal Regulation Zone.

What this means for a buyer. A gunthewari plot is an unauthorised sub-division. Regularisation is discretionary, the section says such developments "be eligible for being considered", and it is available only for developments that existed by the cut-off. A plot sub-divided after 31 December 2020 is not eligible under this Act at all.

Karnataka: The Gunta in the RTC

Karnataka spells it gunta (ಗುಂಟೆ) and uses it as a unit of record, which Maharashtra does not.

A Karnataka RTC (the Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops, commonly called the pahani) states the extent of a survey number in acres and guntas. That is a genuine difference from Maharashtra, whose 7/12 extract is metric and where the guntha survives only in speech and in prose. On a Karnataka RTC the gunta is the number on the document.

Where the gunta appears in Karnataka valuation

The Comptroller and Auditor General's audit of Karnataka stamp duty and registration (Report No. 5 of 2016, Revenue Sector) records how guidance values were denominated:

Paragraph 3.4.9: "The estimated guidance values were expressed in units of acres for land and square feet for sites."

And for converted land inside Bengaluru's municipal limits, at paragraph 3.4.9.1:

"Up to five guntas at site rates and between five guntas and 10 guntas at 50 per cent of the site rates."

Five guntas is 5,445 square feet; ten guntas is 10,890 square feet, which is exactly a quarter-acre. So Karnataka's valuation of converted land turned on gunta thresholds, with a rate that halved between five and ten guntas, a real financial consequence attached to a gunta count.

We could not reach a current Kaveri or IGR Karnataka guidance-value document using guntas. This rests on the 2016 CAG report, which is unimpeachable as to what it records but is now ten years old.

The reported five-gunta conversion rule: treat with care

There are reports from early 2026 that the Karnataka Department of Survey, Settlement and Land Records directed Deputy Commissioners to reject land-use conversion applications for agricultural parcels of five guntas or less, with cancellation of 11E sketches obtained for undersized parcels.

We could not verify this. No circular number, no date, no issuing officer, no verbatim text, and nothing on a Karnataka government host. Every source we reached paraphrased rather than quoted.

Three things are worth saying even so. It concerns conversion, not sale. A different question from Maharashtra's fragmentation bar. Five guntas is 5,445 square feet, or one-eighth of an acre. And if you are contemplating a sub-five-gunta parcel in Karnataka, the Deputy Commissioner's office is the place to ask, not this page.

We also found no accessible text of the Karnataka Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1966, and no Karnataka standard-area notification in guntas. Sections 79A and 79B of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act were widely reported as repealed in 2020, which we did not verify against the amending Act.

The Anna: A Chain Nobody Documents

A Karnataka RTC's extent column is sometimes written acre – gunta – anna – paisa. Those last two are the names of old currency subdivisions, pressed into service as land measures.

No government source defines them. We searched in English and Kannada (Bhoomi documentation, the Karnataka Land Revenue Rules, survey manuals, district handbooks), and found nothing. Every result was a commercial converter site.

Worse, the two figures that circulate contradict each other. One widely-read reference carries both of these, in the same article:

1 gunta = 16 annas, with 1 anna = 7.5624 square yards
6 annas = 1 guntha = 120 square yards

They cannot both be right. So we tested them arithmetically.

Claim in circulation	1 anna works out to	Gunthas it implies	Does it hold up?
1 guntha = 16 annas	68.0625 sq ft = 7.5625 sq yd	1 guntha = 121 sq yd ✓	Coherent. 640 annas to the acre, and the value is exactly the Bihar dhur and the UP biswansi
6 annas = 1 guntha = 120 sq yd	20 sq yd = 180 sq ft	1 guntha = 120 sq yd ✗	Fails. A guntha is 121 sq yd, and this contradicts the 16-anna figure

What the test shows

The 16-anna reading is internally coherent, and it lands somewhere interesting. A guntha is 121 square yards. Divide by 16 and you get exactly 7.5625 square yards, or 68.0625 square feet, and the reference's 7.5624 is that figure truncated, not a different number. Sixteen annas to a guntha and forty gunthas to an acre gives 640 annas to the acre.

That value is not new to this series. 68.0625 square feet, 640 to the acre, is exactly the Bihar dhur and exactly the Uttar Pradesh biswansi, two units already verified from independent sources alongside the bigha. An undocumented Karnataka subdivision landing precisely on a documented Bihar one is either a coincidence or evidence that both descend from the same 1/640-acre unit.

The 6-anna reading fails twice. It contradicts the 16-anna figure in the same article. And its "1 guntha = 120 square yards" is a figure this series has already corrected: a guntha is 121 square yards, because it is eleven yards square.

What this page will not do

It will not publish an anna conversion factor.

The 16-anna reading survives a test the 6-anna reading fails, and it produces a value that matches two documented units elsewhere in India. That is suggestive. It is not a source. No Karnataka government document we could find defines the anna as a land measure at all, and a converter that prints "1 anna = 68.0625 sq ft" as though it were established would be inventing authority.

If your RTC shows annas and paisa, ask the village accountant or the taluk office what the column means for your survey number. If you find a Karnataka government document that defines the chain, we would like to see it.

Guntha to Bigha, Katha, Biswa and Dhur

These four have no national value. Each is a family of regional figures, and which one applies is a question about where the land is. The matrix, not four numbers:

Unit	Square feet in 1	Gunthas in 1	Units in 40 gunthas (1 acre)
Bigha, UP pucca	27,225	25	1.6
Bigha, Punjab	21,780	20	2
Bigha, Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat	17,424	16	2.5
Bigha, West Bengal	14,400	13.2231	3.025
Bigha, Himachal Pradesh	8,712	8	5
Katha, Bihar (Patna)	1,361.25	1.25	32
Katha, West Bengal	720	0.6612	60.5
Katha, Assam	2,880	2.6446	15.125
Biswa, Uttar Pradesh	1,361.25	1.25	32
Dhur, Bihar	68.06	0.0625	640

Note the last row. A Bihar dhur is 68.0625 square feet, exactly one-sixteenth of a guntha, the same relationship the disputed Karnataka anna claims. See the anna section.

When you actually need this conversion. Most of these pairings never meet: a Karnataka RTC does not record bighas, and a Bengal khatian does not record guntas. The conversion becomes real in three situations. Northern Karnataka and the Marathwada border, where holdings on either side of the state line are recorded in guntas and bighas respectively and a family may hold both. Agricultural statistics and scheme forms, which are published per hectare and have to be reconciled against a record in either unit. And inheritance across states, where one branch of a family holds land recorded in guntas and another in kathas, and a partition has to express both in one figure.

In all three the safe route is the same: convert each holding into square metres or hectares first, the units in which both systems are exact, and compare there rather than converting guntha to katha directly.

Regional definitions (why a kachha bigha is a third of a pucca one, which districts use which value) are on the Bigha page and in the Indian Land Units by State hub, and are not repeated here.

Guntha to Cent, Ground, Marla and the Rest

Four marla make a guntha on the standard 66-inch karam, 1,089 divided by 272.25, exactly. It is one of the very few clean whole-number ratios between a Deccan unit and a Punjab one, and it holds only on that belt: in the Majha belt a guntha is 4.36 marla and the tidiness disappears.

The single-valued regional units. Almost all of these are exact, for the reason given at the top of the page.

Unit	1 guntha equals	1 of these equals
Cent = Decimal = Dismil	2.5	0.4 guntha
Ground (Tamil Nadu)	0.45375	2.203857 guntha
Ankanam (coastal Andhra)	15.125	0.066116 guntha
Chatak (West Bengal)	24.2	0.041322 guntha
Lessa (Assam)	7.5625	0.132231 guntha
Nali (Uttarakhand)	0.504167	1.983471 guntha
Marla / Perch (66-in)	4	0.25 guntha
Kanal (66-in)	0.2	5 guntha
Kuncham (Andhra Pradesh)	0.25	4 guntha

Three of these are worth committing to memory if you work across states: 1 guntha = 2.5 cents, 1 guntha = 4 marla, and 5 gunthas = 1 kanal. All three are exact, and each closes a chain back to the acre.

Worked example, in the direction people actually need. A Chennai buyer is offered land described as 18 gunthas by a Karnataka seller. In the unit they think in, that is 18 × 2.5 = 45 cents, and since 100 cents make an acre, 45 cents is 0.45 acre, which the guntha figure confirms directly at 18 ÷ 40 = 0.45. Two routes, same answer, no rounding in either.

Now run the conversion the other way, from a metric unit. One hectare is 98.842153… gunthas, and that decimal never terminates. The asymmetry is the practical meaning of the exactness table at the top of this page: out of a guntha the arithmetic stays clean, because the guntha divides the acre evenly and so do most Indian units. Into a guntha from a metric figure it does not, because the acre and the hectare share no common whole number.

So when a chain has to pass through both systems, do the metric part first and finish in gunthas, not the reverse.

Guntha to Square Kilometer, Square Mile, Square Inch and Square Centimeter

Arithmetic only.

Unit	1 guntha equals
Square kilometre	0.00010117141056
Square mile	0.0000390625
Square inch	156,816
Square centimetre	1,011,714.1056

Square inches and square centimetres are finishing units, not land units, useful for a compound wall or a floor, never for a survey number.

Three Mistakes That Change the Answer

1. Reading a guntha as an are, or an are as a guntha

They differ by 1.171411%: about one square metre per unit. That was an arithmetic nuisance until August 2023. Now Maharashtra's minimum area is written in ares, so the confusion changes which side of a legal threshold a parcel sits on.

If the document says	It means	Not
20 आर / 20 R	20 ares = 2,000 m² = 19.7684 gunthas	20 gunthas (2,023.43 m²)
10 आर / 10 R	10 ares = 1,000 m² = 9.8842 gunthas	10 gunthas (1,011.71 m²)
20 गुंठे	20 gunthas = 2,023.43 m²	20 ares (2,000 m²)

The tell: the middle column of a Maharashtra 7/12 is headed आर and is metric. If a figure comes off a 7/12, it is ares.

2. Assuming a hectare is 100 gunthas

It is 98.842153. The gap is 1.157847 gunthas, 1,261 square feet, about a tenth of a guntha short of a whole one.

The mistake is easy because the acre relationship is round: 40 gunthas exactly. Readers reasonably expect the hectare to be round too. It is not, and it cannot be, because an acre is not a round part of a hectare either.

Holding	At 100 gunthas per hectare	Correct	Overstated by
1 hectare	100	98.8422	1.16 gunthas
2 hectares	200	197.6843	2.32 gunthas
5 hectares	500	494.2108	5.79 gunthas
10 hectares	1,000	988.4215	11.58 gunthas

3. Treating a registered sale as a lawful one

Since 5 May 2022 a Maharashtra sub-registrar must register a deed for a sub-standard agricultural parcel. Since 1947, section 9 has made such a transfer void where it creates a fragment.

Both are true at once. Registration answers whether the document goes on the register. Section 9 answers whether the transfer worked. A registered deed is evidence of registration and nothing else. See What You Are Allowed to Sell.

Frequently Asked Questions

Eight questions the page has not already answered.

How many square feet is 1 guntha?

1,089 square feet, exactly. Also 121 square yards, 101.17141056 square metres, and exactly one-fortieth of an acre. A guntha is a square 33 feet on a side, which is where all of those come from.

Is a guntha the same as an are?

No. A guntha is 101.17141056 m²; an are is exactly 100 m². The guntha is 1.171411% larger. They are close enough that the two are used interchangeably in speech across rural Maharashtra, and far enough apart that doing so on a document gives a wrong answer, and, since Maharashtra's minimum area moved into ares in 2023, possibly the wrong side of a legal threshold.

Can I buy a 2-guntha plot in Maharashtra?

It depends on facts this page cannot see, and the honest answer has three parts.

The deed can be registered. Since Solpure (5 May 2022) a sub-registrar cannot refuse on the ground that no sanctioned layout was produced.

Registration does not make the transfer valid. If the sale creates a fragment, a parcel below the standard area for that land class in that local area, section 9 of the 1947 Act makes it void.

And two gunthas is well below both current standards. Two gunthas is 2,178 square feet, 202.34 square metres. The jirayat standard is 2,000 m² and the bagayat standard 1,000 m². So a two-guntha parcel is about a tenth of the dry-land standard and a fifth of the irrigated-land standard. A sale that carves such a parcel out of a larger holding creates a fragment, and section 9 makes it void.

What could still make a two-guntha purchase lawful is narrow: the parcel is already a recorded fragment and you own a contiguous survey number (s.7); or the purchase is for one of the permitted purposes reported in the 14 March 2024 notification; or the land falls inside the 2025 deemed-regularisation window, which requires both a transfer dated on or before 15 October 2024 and bona fide non-agricultural use.

Standard areas are set by notification for a local area and land class, so confirm the figure that applies to that land. Ask the talathi and the tahsildar's office, and take legal advice, before paying.

What is the minimum agricultural land I can buy in Maharashtra?

By the notification of 8 August 2023, the standard area is 20 ares for jirayat (dry) land and 10 ares for bagayat (irrigated) land, statewide. In gunthas that is 19.7684 and 9.8842. Below the applicable standard area, a transfer that creates a fragment is void under section 9.

Two things narrow that: a parcel that is already a recorded fragment can be transferred to the owner of a contiguous survey number under section 7, and a notification of 14 March 2024 is reported to permit fragment purchase for specific purposes such as a farm road or a well.

Did the tukda bandi law get repealed in 2025?

No. Ordinance No. X of 2025 and the replacing Bill No. XCIV of 2025 inserted a new section 9(4) providing deemed regularisation without premium for transfers made between 15 November 1965 and 15 October 2024 where the land is used or intended for bona fide non-agricultural user.

Sections 8 and 9 are untouched for everything outside that window. Reports of a general repeal, and a ministerial statement about transactions up to one guntha, do not match the text of either instrument.

How many gunthas in one hectare?

98.842153, not 100. The shortfall is 1,261 square feet. In an acre it is exactly 40.

What is an anna in a Karnataka RTC?

A subdivision of a gunta whose size no government source defines. Two contradictory figures circulate. The one that survives arithmetic (16 annas to a gunta, giving 68.0625 square feet) happens to equal the Bihar dhur and the UP biswansi exactly, at 640 to the acre. That is suggestive but it is not authority, and this page publishes no anna conversion factor. Ask your village accountant what the column means for your survey number.

Is a guntha the same size everywhere in India?

Yes, as far as we can establish. We looked for a guntha of any other value and found none: every source, including Supreme Court and High Court judgments and CAG audit reports, uses 40 gunthas to the acre. That makes it unusual in this series. The bigha varies nine-fold, the marla by half, the katha by four.

The unit's use varies. It is the unit of record on a Karnataka RTC, a unit of speech and government prose in Maharashtra, and reported in parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, though we could not source that last usage to any government document.

Sources and Method

The arithmetic

The whole page rests on two definitions and one conversion:


A guntha is a square 33 feet on a side	1,089 sq ft
Forty of them make an acre	43,560 sq ft
A foot is 0.3048 metre, by definition	so a guntha is 101.17141056 m²

Everything else follows by division. All of it was done in exact rational arithmetic rather than decimals, so no intermediate value was ever rounded; rounding happens once, when a figure is printed. The finished page was then re-read by a checker that pulls each table apart, looks up each unit again from the source definitions, and recomputes every cell to the precision it is shown at. Prose figures were re-derived separately, from the definitions rather than from the tables, so an error copied from a table into a sentence would still be caught. 360 table cells and 97 prose figures checked. Errors at delivery: 0: after the check caught two real mistakes in draft, one of which told the reader a two-guntha parcel sat above a legal threshold it is a tenth of.

An Exact flag means the decimal stops. Almost every flag on this page says Exact, and that is a fact about the guntha rather than a choice about display. The reason is here.

Primary sources

Legislation and rules

Maharashtra Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947 (Bombay Act LXII of 1947), ss.2(4), 2(10), 5, 7, 8, 8A, 8AA, 9.
Maharashtra Ordinance No. X of 2025, The Maharashtra Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025, promulgated 2 November 2025.
L.A. Bill No. XCIV of 2025, the replacing Amendment Bill, deemed in force 3 November 2025, new s.9(4); amendments to s.8B and s.9(3); Statement of Objects and Reasons.
Maharashtra Gunthewari Developments (Regularisation, Upgradation and Control) Act, 2001 (Mah. XXVII of 2001): long title, s.2, s.3(1).
Maharashtra Registration Rules, 1961: Rule 44(1)(i).
Registration Act, 1908: ss.34, 35.

Notifications and departmental sources

Maharashtra Department of Land Records (भूमी अभिलेख), page on एकत्रीकरण: the historical standard areas in acres and gunthas, and the notification dated 8 August 2023 setting 20 आर for jirayat and 10 आर for bagayat statewide; and a notification dated 17 June 2025 applying the same standard to Akola district.
Inspector General of Registration and Controller of Stamps, Maharashtra: circular dated 12 July 2021.

Judgments

Govind Ramling Solpure & Others v. The State of Maharashtra & Others, Writ Petition No. 2111 of 2022, High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Bench at Aurangabad, Dhanuka and Mehare JJ., 5 May 2022.
Shri K. Jayaram & Ors. v. Bangalore Development Authority & Ors., Supreme Court of India, 8 December 2021, areas stated in acres and guntas.
Padmabai Narayan Chaudhary & Ors. v. The Deputy Director of Land Records & Ors., Bombay High Court, 2020(2) ALL MR 30, Deo J., 13 February 2020, a Fragmentation Act case with areas in acres and gunthas.

Audit

Comptroller and Auditor General, Karnataka Report No. 5 of 2016, Revenue Sector, Chapter 3, paragraphs 3.4.9 and 3.4.9.1.

Sourcing caveats, stated on the page and repeated here

The 14 March 2024 permitted-purposes notification and the 17 June 2025 Akola notification come from a Maharashtra revenue-practitioner reference, not from a government host. They are flagged where used.
The reported scope of the 2025 amendment (municipal limits, MMRDA, PMRDA, NMRDA, planning authorities, growth centres, UDCPR peripheral zones, and the 49-lakh-family figure) comes from press and practitioner reporting, not from the Bill's text.
The Gunthewari Act's amending instrument could not be obtained; the substitution of 31 December 2020 for 1 January 2001 is reported from the amended text.

What could not be verified

Published here rather than filled in.

Whether Solpure has been appealed, stayed, or overtaken by a later circular. We did not check, and the point is load-bearing for this page.
The Karnataka five-gunta conversion rule: no circular number, date, issuing officer or verbatim text; nothing on a Karnataka government host.
The Karnataka Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1966: no accessible text, and no Karnataka standard-area notification in guntas.
The 2020 repeal of Karnataka Land Reforms Act ss.79A and 79B: widely reported, not verified against the amending Act.
Any current Karnataka guidance-value document using guntas. The 2016 CAG report is the most recent source reached.
The anna and paisa chain. No government source defines either as a land measure.
Guntha usage in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Widely repeated; no government document found. The claim is softened accordingly on this page.
The pre-2025 text of s.8B's proviso and s.9(3)'s provisos, which the 2025 amendment deletes. The compilation we reached does not reproduce the principal Act's sections.
Any Maharashtra NA order, ready reckoner or land acquisition award stating an area in gunthas, and any provision of the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code 1966 defining the guntha. Absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.

What is original to this page

Four findings we could not locate anywhere else:

The guntha is the best-connected unit in Indian land measurement. Fifteen of sixteen conversions out of it terminate exactly, against six of twenty for the square foot and three of twenty-one for the hectare, because a guntha divides the acre evenly, so every other clean divisor of the acre relates to it in whole numbers. 1 guntha = 4 marla = 36 square karam = 2.5 cents = 0.2 kanal. That makes it a chain-closing unit: a conversion routed through it that does not land on a clean value has a broken step.
Maharashtra's minimum area changed size, not just unit. The notification of 8 August 2023 moved bagayat land from 20 gunthas (2,023.43 m²) to 10 ares (1,000 m²), a halving, and jirayat land from 1–2 acres to 20 ares. Guidance still quoting "20 gunthas" describes a threshold that no longer exists, in a unit the notification no longer uses. 20 ares is 19.7684 gunthas.
Registrable is not the same as valid. Solpure read down Rule 44(1)(i) on 5 May 2022, so the deed must be registered; s.9 of the 1947 Act still makes the transfer void where it creates a fragment. Nearly all published guidance treats these as one question. Related: the 2025 amendment is bounded by a date window and a use condition and contains no size threshold, so the widely-reported "one guntha repeal" is not in the instrument.
The anna tested rather than repeated. Of the two figures in circulation, the 16-anna reading is coherent and yields 68.0625 sq ft at 640 to the acre, exactly the Bihar dhur and the UP biswansi, while the 6-anna reading fails on the already-corrected 120-square-yard guntha. This page publishes the test and withholds the factor, because no source supports one.

Two structural points also appear to be unpublished: the 1947 Act contains no area figure at all, delegating the standard area to notification under s.5; and the Gunthewari Act never defines a guntha, taking its name from a market practice rather than a measure.

Help us close two gaps

Two documents would materially improve this page and we could not obtain either.

The first is whatever has happened to Solpure since 5 May 2022, an appeal, a stay, a superseding circular, or nothing at all. The registrable-but-void position stated above turns on that judgment still standing.

The second is the Karnataka circular behind the reported five-gunta conversion bar. With a number and a date this page could state the rule instead of describing a report of it.

If you have either, or if any figure or reading here is wrong, tell us.

Guntha Conversion Quick Reference

Conversion	1 Guntha	Note
Acre	0.025	Exact; Exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd
Ankanam	15.125 (Standard)	Region-specific; also 30.25 (Tirupati)
Ares	1.0117141056	Exact; 100 m², the metric are
Bigha	0.0625 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)	Region-specific; also 0.04 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) · 0.12 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.16 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills)
Biswa	0.8 (UP / Rajasthan pucca)	Region-specific; also 1.25 (Rajasthan kachha) · 2.4 (Punjab / Haryana old records) · 2.5 (Himachal Pradesh)
Biswa Kacha	2.4 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition)	Region-specific; also 1.25 (Rajasthan kachha reading)
Cent	2.5	Exact; One hundredth of an acre, exactly
Chatak	24.2	Exact; 5 sq yd exactly; 16 to the cottah, 968 to the acre. Reported, not stated by any instrument located
Decimal	2.5	Exact; One hundredth of an acre, exactly
Dhur	16 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain))	Region-specific; also 302.5 (Tripura)
Dismil	2.5	Exact; The decimal under another name
Gaj	121	Exact; The square yard, 9 sq ft
Gajam	121	Exact; The square yard in Telugu, 9 sq ft
Ground	0.45375	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)"
Hectare	0.010117141056	Exact; 10,000 m² exactly
Kanal	0.2 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 0.242 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 0.263501 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 0.298765 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Katha	0.8 (Bihar state standard)	Region-specific; also 1.5125 (West Bengal / Jharkhand) · 0.378125 (Assam) · 0.625 (Bihar (Chhapra))
Killa	0.025	Exact; The acre under its Punjabi name
Lessa	7.5625	Exact; The 12-foot mauzadari jar squared (Assam Land Records Manual r.117); 20 to a katha, 100 to a bigha
Marla	4 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 4.84 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 5.270019 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 5.975309 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Murabba	0.001 (Punjab canal colony)	Region-specific; also 0.0016 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal))
Nali	0.504167	Recurring; 240 sq yd; 16 mutthi of 135 sq ft. No instrument located states the figure
Perch	4	Exact; 30.25 sq yd; 160 perches = 1 acre
Pura	0.01890625	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	1,011,714.1056	Exact; One ten-thousandth of a square metre
Square Feet	1,089	Exact; The base of this series
Square Inch	156,816	Exact; One 144th of a square foot
Square Karam	36 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 43.56 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 47.43017 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 53.777778 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Square Kilometer	0.00010117141056	Exact; 1,000,000 m²
Square Meter	101.17141056	Exact; The SI unit of area
Square Mile	0.0000390625	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	121	Exact; 9 sq ft exactly

Guntha to Acre

1 guntha = 0.025 acres, exact. An acre is exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd.

Forty guntha to the acre, exactly. The guntha is 121 square yards, the square of an 11-yard chain-third, which is why the division is clean.

Where the acre fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Acre and Hectare above; what follows is the arithmetic.

Guntha to Acre Formula

Acre = Guntha × 0.025

Popular Guntha to Acre Conversions

Guntha	Acre
1	0.025
2	0.05
3	0.075
5	0.125
10	0.25
20	0.5
50	1.25
100	2.5
200	5
500	12.5
1,000	25

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 0.025 = 0.125 acres

Reverse Conversion: Acre to Guntha

Guntha = Acre × 40

Guntha to Ankanam

1 guntha = 15.125 ankanam on the Standard definition. The ankanam has no single national value. It is also 30.25 (Tirupati) per guntha. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

15.125 ankanam to the guntha on the standard 72 sq ft definition. Both units are used in Andhra Pradesh, which is the one state where a reader may meet them in the same document.

The ratio is the fraction 121/8, or 15.125 exactly.

Guntha to Ankanam Formula

Ankanam = Guntha × 15.125 (Standard)

Popular Guntha to Ankanam Conversions

Guntha	Ankanam (Standard)
1	15.125
2	30.25
3	45.375
5	75.625
10	151.25
20	302.5
50	756.25
100	1,512.5
200	3,025
500	7,562.5
1,000	15,125

Ankanam by Region

Ankanam definition	Where it applies	1 ankanam in sq ft	Ankanam per guntha	Terminates?	Evidence
Standard (the definition used here)	Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, parts of Karnataka	72	15.125	Exact	sourced
Tirupati	Tirupati and parts of Chittoor	36	30.25	Exact	sourced

To convert against one of the other definitions, multiply by its factor.

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 15.125 = 75.625 ankanam

Reverse Conversion: Ankanam to Guntha

Guntha = Ankanam ÷ 15.125 (Standard)

Guntha = Ankanam ÷ 30.25 (Tirupati)

Guntha to Ares

1 guntha = 1.0117141056 ares, exact. An are is 100 m², the metric are.

A guntha is not an are, and the gap is what catches people. A guntha is 1,089 sq ft; an are is 1,076.39 sq ft. The guntha is 1.171411% larger. On a 7/12 extract that prints both, the two columns will not agree, and the difference is real rather than a rounding artefact. On a 20-guntha plot it is about 258 sq ft.

The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/156,250,000, or 1.0117141056 exactly.

Guntha to Ares Formula

Ares = Guntha × 1.0117141056

Popular Guntha to Ares Conversions

Guntha	Ares
1	1.0117141056
2	2.0234282112
3	3.0351423168
5	5.058570528
10	10.117141056
20	20.234282112
50	50.58570528
100	101.17141056
200	202.34282112
500	505.8570528
1,000	1,011.7141056

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 1.0117141056 = 5.058570528 ares

Reverse Conversion: Ares to Guntha

Guntha = Ares ÷ 1.0117141056

Guntha to Bigha

1 guntha = 0.0625 bigha on the Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai definition. The bigha has no single national value. It is also 0.04 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) · 0.12 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.16 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills) and 5 more per guntha. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

The guntha is fixed at 1,089 square feet and the bigha is not. In Gujarat the relationship is clean (16 guntha to the vigha, because the Gujarat bigha is 17,424 square feet), and in most other states it is not.

Where the bigha fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Bigha, Katha, Biswa and Dhur above; what follows is the arithmetic.

Guntha to Bigha Formula

Bigha = Guntha × 0.0625 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)

Popular Guntha to Bigha Conversions

Guntha	Bigha (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)
1	0.0625
2	0.125
3	0.1875
5	0.3125
10	0.625
20	1.25
50	3.125
100	6.25
200	12.5
500	31.25
1,000	62.5

Bigha by Region

Bigha definition	Where it applies	1 bigha in sq ft	Bigha per guntha	Terminates?	Evidence
UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca	Purvanchal, Awadh, Patna belt, east Rajasthan	27,225	0.04	Exact	sourced
UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)	West Uttar Pradesh	9,075	0.12	Exact	sourced
UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills	West UP, Kumaon and Garhwal hills	6,806.25	0.16	Exact	sourced
Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai (the definition used here)	Marwar, Gujarat, Terai	17,424	0.0625	Exact	sourced
Madhya Pradesh	Madhya Pradesh	12,000	0.09075	Exact	reported, not sourced
West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand	West Bengal, Assam, Ranchi	14,400	0.075625	Exact	sourced
Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt	Himachal Pradesh, Rohtak, Hisar	8,712	0.125	Exact	sourced
Punjab / west Haryana	Punjab, kanal belt of Haryana	21,780	0.05	Exact	sourced
Haryana Ambala belt	Ambala, Gurugram, Faridabad, Karnal, Panipat	8,100	0.134444	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.

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 0.0625 = 0.3125 bigha

Reverse Conversion: Bigha to Guntha

Guntha = Bigha × 16 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)

Guntha = Bigha × 25 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) Guntha = Bigha ÷ 0.12 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) Guntha = Bigha × 6.25 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills) Guntha = Bigha ÷ 0.09075 (Madhya Pradesh) Guntha = Bigha ÷ 0.075625 (West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand) Guntha = Bigha × 8 (Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt) Guntha = Bigha × 20 (Punjab / west Haryana) Guntha = Bigha × 900/121 (Haryana Ambala belt)

Guntha to Cent

1 guntha = 2.5 cents, exact. A cent is one hundredth of an 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.

Where the cent fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Cent, Ground, Marla and the Rest above; what follows is the arithmetic.

The ratio is the fraction 5/2, or 2.5 exactly.

Guntha to Cent Formula

Cent = Guntha × 2.5

Popular Guntha to Cent Conversions

Guntha	Cent
1	2.5
2	5
3	7.5
5	12.5
10	25
20	50
50	125
100	250
200	500
500	1,250
1,000	2,500

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 2.5 = 12.5 cents

Reverse Conversion: Cent to Guntha

Guntha = Cent × 0.4

Guntha to Ground

1 guntha = 0.45375 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 2.203857… gunthas, recurring, because the ground is a Tamil unit defined in square feet and the guntha a Deccan one defined in square yards. They were never designed to interlock.

Where the ground fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Cent, Ground, Marla and the Rest above; what follows is the arithmetic.

The ratio is the fraction 363/800, or 0.45375 exactly.

Guntha to Ground Formula

Ground = Guntha × 0.45375

Popular Guntha to Ground Conversions

Guntha	Ground
1	0.45375
2	0.9075
3	1.36125
5	2.26875
10	4.5375
20	9.075
50	22.6875
100	45.375
200	90.75
500	226.875
1,000	453.75

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 0.45375 = 2.26875 grounds

Reverse Conversion: Ground to Guntha

Guntha = Ground ÷ 0.45375

Guntha to Hectare

1 guntha = 0.010117141056 hectares, exact. A hectare is 10,000 m² exactly.

98.842153… gunthas to the hectare, a figure that recurs, which is the clue that the two units come from different systems. On a 7/12 extract that prints hectares and gunthas side by side, neither column is a clean multiple of the other.

Where the hectare fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Acre and Hectare above; what follows is the arithmetic.

The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/15,625,000,000, or 0.010117141056 exactly.

Guntha to Hectare Formula

Hectare = Guntha × 0.010117141056

Popular Guntha to Hectare Conversions

Guntha	Hectare
1	0.010117141056
2	0.020234282112
3	0.030351423168
5	0.05058570528
10	0.10117141056
20	0.20234282112
50	0.5058570528
100	1.0117141056
200	2.0234282112
500	5.058570528
1,000	10.117141056

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 0.010117141056 = 0.05058570528 hectares

Reverse Conversion: Hectare to Guntha

Guntha = Hectare ÷ 0.010117141056

Guntha to Marla

1 guntha = 4 marla on the Standard (66-inch karam) definition. The marla has no single national value. It is also 4.84 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 5.270019 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 5.975309 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) and 1 more per guntha. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

Four marla to the guntha on the standard karam, 1,089 ÷ 272.25 exactly. One of the few clean ratios between a Deccan unit and a Punjab one, and it holds only on the 66-inch belt.

Where the marla fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Cent, Ground, Marla and the Rest above; what follows is the arithmetic.

Guntha to Marla Formula

Marla = Guntha × 4 (Standard (66-inch karam))

Popular Guntha to Marla Conversions

Guntha	Marla (Standard (66-inch karam))
1	4
2	8
3	12
5	20
10	40
20	80
50	200
100	400
200	800
500	2,000
1,000	4,000

Marla by Region

Marla definition	Where it applies	1 marla in sq ft	Marla per guntha	Terminates?	Evidence
Standard (66-inch karam) (the definition used here)	Most of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, J&K	272.25	4	Exact	sourced
Majha belt (60-inch karam)	Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran	225	4.84	Exact	reported, not sourced
Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)	Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur, and Kangra in Himachal	206.640625	5.270019	Recurring	reported, not sourced
Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)	Parts of Kapurthala	182.25	5.975309	Recurring	reported, not sourced
HSVP urban estate	Haryana urban estates	225	4.84	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.

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 4 = 20 marla

Reverse Conversion: Marla to Guntha

Guntha = Marla × 0.25 (Standard (66-inch karam))

Guntha = Marla ÷ 4.84 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) Guntha = Marla × 13,225/69,696 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) Guntha = Marla × 81/484 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam)) Guntha = Marla ÷ 4.84 (HSVP urban estate)

Guntha to Nali

1 guntha = 0.504167 nali, recurring. A nali is 240 sq yd; 16 mutthi of 135 sq ft. No instrument located states the figure.

A nali is just under two gunthas, 1.983…, which is the closest the hill unit comes to a Deccan one. The two systems have no historical connection; the near miss is arithmetic.

The ratio is the fraction 121/240, 0.50416667…, which recurs.

Guntha to Nali Formula

Nali = Guntha × 121/240

Popular Guntha to Nali Conversions

Guntha	Nali
1	0.504167
2	1.008333
3	1.5125
5	2.520833
10	5.041667
20	10.083333
50	25.208333
100	50.416667
200	100.833333
500	252.083333
1,000	504.166667

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 121/240 = 2.520833 nali

Reverse Conversion: Nali to Guntha

Guntha = Nali × 240/121

Guntha to Square Feet

1 guntha = 1,089 square feet, exact. A square foot is the base of this series.

1,089 square feet to the guntha, 33 feet square. A guntha is the square of a third of a Gunter's chain, which is why the number is a perfect square and why forty of them make an acre exactly.

Where the square foot fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Square Feet, Square Yard and Square Meter above; what follows is the arithmetic.

Guntha to Square Feet Formula

Square Feet = Guntha × 1,089

Popular Guntha to Square Feet Conversions

Guntha	Square Feet
1	1,089
2	2,178
3	3,267
5	5,445
10	10,890
20	21,780
50	54,450
100	108,900
200	217,800
500	544,500
1,000	1,089,000

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 1,089 = 5,445 square feet

Reverse Conversion: Square Feet to Guntha

Guntha = Square Feet ÷ 1,089

Guntha to Square Meter

1 guntha = 101.17141056 square metres, exact. A square metre is the SI unit of area.

Where the square metre fits into the guntha's own record is set out in Guntha to Square Feet, Square Yard and Square Meter above; what follows is the arithmetic.

The ratio is the fraction 158,080,329/1,562,500, or 101.17141056 exactly.

Guntha to Square Meter Formula

Square Meter = Guntha × 101.17141056

Popular Guntha to Square Meter Conversions

Guntha	Square Meter
1	101.17141056
2	202.34282112
3	303.51423168
5	505.8570528
10	1,011.7141056
20	2,023.4282112
50	5,058.570528
100	10,117.141056
200	20,234.282112
500	50,585.70528
1,000	101,171.41056

Worked Example

5 gunthas × 101.17141056 = 505.8570528 square metres

Reverse Conversion: Square Meter to Guntha

Guntha = Square Meter ÷ 101.17141056

Guntha 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.

Guntha to Murabba

1 guntha = 0.001 murabba on the Punjab canal colony definition; 0.0016 on the Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal) definition. Murabba = Guntha × 0.001 (Punjab canal colony) · reverse Guntha = Murabba × 1,000

Guntha	Murabba (Punjab canal colony)
1	0.001
2	0.002
3	0.003
5	0.005
10	0.01
20	0.02
50	0.05
100	0.1
200	0.2
500	0.5
1,000	1

Murabba, Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal) (680,625 sq ft):

Guntha	Murabba (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal))
1	0.0016
2	0.0032
3	0.0048
5	0.008
10	0.016
20	0.032
50	0.08
100	0.16
200	0.32
500	0.8
1,000	1.6

Guntha to Biswa

1 guntha = 0.8 biswa on the UP / Rajasthan pucca definition; 1.25 on the Rajasthan kachha definition · 2.4 on the Punjab / Haryana old records definition · 2.5 on the Himachal Pradesh definition. Biswa = Guntha × 0.8 (UP / Rajasthan pucca) · reverse Guntha = Biswa × 1.25

Guntha	Biswa (UP / Rajasthan pucca)
1	0.8
2	1.6
3	2.4
5	4
10	8
20	16
50	40
100	80
200	160
500	400
1,000	800