Nali Converter – Nali to Sq Ft, Square Yard, Bigha, Acre & Other 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 conversion is easy and the evidence is thin, and the evidence is where the work went. Nothing in the Indian statute book states that a nali is 2,160 square feet; the phrase that would say so returns nothing, and the sub-unit that gives the nali its size, the mutthi, appears in no Indian rule at all. What does exist is a live usage in the Uttarakhand High Court and one judgment from June 2025 about a man nearly evicted over three nali of forest land, in which the Court held that a Patwari's report giving an area in nali, with no boundary and no measurement in feet or metres, could not identify the land. That is the thing worth knowing about this unit, and it is not a conversion factor.

The Answer, First

1 nali (नाली) = 2,160 square feet = 240 square yards = 200.6705664 square metres exactly.

Sixteen mutthi (मुट्ठी) make one nali.

One nali, in	Amount	Terminates?
Square feet	2,160	yes
Square yards	240	yes
Square metres	200.6705664	yes
Mutthi	16	yes
Acres	0.049586776…	no
Hectares	0.02006705664	yes
Bighas (UP kachha, Uttarakhand hills, see below)	0.317355…	no

Popular Nali Conversions

Nali	Square Feet	Square Yard	Bigha (Uttarakhand hills)	Acre	Hectare
1	2,160	240	0.317355	0.049587	0.02006705664
2	4,320	480	0.634711	0.099174	0.04013411328
3	6,480	720	0.952066	0.14876	0.06020116992
5	10,800	1,200	1.586777	0.247934	0.1003352832
10	21,600	2,400	3.173554	0.495868	0.2006705664
20	43,200	4,800	6.347107	0.991736	0.4013411328
50	108,000	12,000	15.867769	2.479339	1.003352832
100	216,000	24,000	31.735537	4.958678	2.006705664
200	432,000	48,000	63.471074	9.917355	4.013411328
500	1,080,000	120,000	158.677686	24.793388	10.03352832
1,000	2,160,000	240,000	317.355372	49.586777	20.06705664

One figure on that table recurs, and it is the acre. There are 20.1666… nali to the acre, the fraction 121⁄6, and the 121 is 11², which the Square Mile page traces to the sixteen-and-a-half-foot rod the acre is built from. The guntha closes almost every conversion chain in this series exactly; the nali is the one unit it does not close, and this is that finding from the other side.

Three things that table does not say.

No Indian instrument states 2,160. Searching the whole indexed corpus for the nali beside that figure, or beside 240 square yards, returns nothing either way. The sixteen-mutthi chain that produces it appears in no Indian statute or rule. This series grades the figure reported, not sourced for that reason.

The word is also a drain. Nali is ordinary Hindi and Marathi for a gutter or channel, and it returns 148 documents in the Bombay High Court, which has no Kumaoni land unit in it at all. No bare count of this word means anything, and every figure on this page is bound to a second word.

And an area in nali does not identify a parcel. In June 2025 the Uttarakhand High Court set aside an eviction because a Patwari's report gave the area and nothing else: "does not contain any definitive boundary markers or measurements in feet or meters", and the land "measured only using an inch tape".

One warning about the bigha row above. This series pairs the nali with the five-biswa kachha bigha of 6,806.25 square feet, which is the value this series carries for the Uttarakhand hills. It is not the only figure in circulation for a hill bigha, no instrument fixes any of them, and the spread between the published ones is large. The nali-to-bigha figure is therefore the least reliable number on this page, more so than the nali itself, because it depends on two unsourced values rather than one. Use square feet as the bridge and settle the local bigha from the record rather than from a table.

Convert The answer, first · To square feet, square yards and mutthi

Understand What a nali figure cannot do · The size nobody wrote down · Which spelling to search · Converting a compound figure · Counting a word that is also a drain · The nali and the lessa · Three mistakes

Check FAQ · Sources and method

Convert to a specific unit: Acre · Ankanam · Ares · Bigha · Biswa · Biswa Kacha · Cent · Chatak · Decimal · Dhur · Dismil · Gaj · Gajam · Ground · Guntha · Hectare · Kanal · Katha · Killa · Lessa · Marla · Murabba · 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.

Nali to Other Units – Quick Conversion Formula

Every factor is a nali's own size, 2,160 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
Nali to Acre	Nali × 6/121	Recurring
Nali to Ankanam	Nali × 30	Exact · Ankanam is regional. This row is the Standard; also 60
Nali to Ares	Nali × 2.006705664	Exact
Nali to Bigha	Nali × 192/605	Recurring · Bigha is regional. This row is the UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills; also 0.079339, 0.238017, 0.123967 and 5 more
Nali to Biswa	Nali × 600/121	Recurring · Biswa is regional. This row is the Himachal Pradesh; also 1.586777, 2.479339, 4.760331
Nali to Biswa Kacha	Nali × 576/121	Recurring · Biswa Kacha is regional. This row is the Punjab / Haryana revenue; also 2.479339
Nali to Cent	Nali × 600/121	Recurring
Nali to Chatak	Nali × 48	Exact
Nali to Decimal	Nali × 600/121	Recurring
Nali to Dhur	Nali × 3,840/121	Recurring · Dhur is regional. This row is the Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain); also 600
Nali to Dismil	Nali × 600/121	Recurring
Nali to Gaj	Nali × 240	Exact
Nali to Gajam	Nali × 240	Exact
Nali to Ground	Nali × 0.9	Exact
Nali to Guntha	Nali × 240/121	Recurring
Nali to Hectare	Nali × 0.02006705664	Exact
Nali to Kanal	Nali × 48/121	Recurring · Kanal is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 0.48, 0.522647, 0.592593
Nali to Katha	Nali × 192/121	Recurring · Katha is regional. This row is the Bihar state standard; also 3, 0.75, 1.239669 and 2 more
Nali to Killa	Nali × 6/121	Recurring
Nali to Lessa	Nali × 15	Exact
Nali to Marla	Nali × 960/121	Recurring · Marla is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 9.6, 10.45293, 11.851852 and 1 more
Nali to Murabba	Nali × 6/3,025	Recurring · Murabba is regional. This row is the Punjab canal colony; also 0.003174
Nali to Perch	Nali × 960/121	Recurring
Nali to Pura	Nali × 0.0375	Exact
Nali to Square Centimeter	Nali × 2,006,705.664	Exact
Nali to Square Feet	Nali × 2,160	Exact
Nali to Square Inch	Nali × 311,040	Exact
Nali to Square Karam	Nali × 8,640/121	Recurring · Square Karam is regional. This row is the Standard (66-inch karam); also 86.4, 94.076371, 106.666667
Nali to Square Kilometer	Nali × 0.0002006705664	Exact
Nali to Square Meter	Nali × 200.6705664	Exact
Nali to Square Mile	Nali × 3/38,720	Recurring
Nali to Square Yard	Nali × 240	Exact

A Figure in Nali Is Not a Description of a Parcel

A. K. Jain v. District Magistrate, Champawat, Uttarakhand High Court, Writ Petition 2607 of 2017 (M/S), decided 2 June 2025 by Ashish Naithani J.

The petitioner bought one nali in Khasra 2319 at Village Jaul by a registered sale deed of 7 September 2006. Nine years later, eviction proceedings were brought against him over three nali of land in Khasra 2377 (Panchayat Forest, category 9(3)(A)), and in 2016 the Prescribed Authority ordered him evicted on a challan report and a Patwari's testimony.

The Court's criticism of that evidence is the reason this page exists:

"The report of the Patwari relied upon by the respondents does not contain any definitive boundary markers or measurements in feet or meters. The Patwari himself admitted that the land was measured only using an inch tape, without demarcating proper boundaries or linking the site on the ground to the revenue records in a verifiable manner."

and:

"both the Prescribed Authority and the Appellate Court proceeded on mere presumptions without conducting any on-site demarcation or physical verification in the presence of both parties."

An area stated in nali, on its own, could not establish which land was meant. The petitioner's sale deed and a 2013 civil decree described boundaries that "differ materially" from those in the eviction order, and the whole proceeding turned on whether the land he occupied was in Khasra 2319 or 2377. A question an area figure cannot answer at all.

What a reader should take from it

A nali is an area. An eviction, a mutation and a sale are about identification. The two are different problems and only one of them is arithmetic.

That distinction sounds obvious written down, and a High Court had to make it in 2025 because in practice a hill land record is often a khasra number and a figure in nali, with the boundary carried in local knowledge rather than in the document. When the local knowledge and the document part company, the figure does not decide it.

So before converting anything out of a Kumaoni or Garhwali record, establish these, in this order:

The khasra number, and that it is the khasra you think it is.
The boundaries, from the sale deed rather than from the area, the four sides, named.
Whether a demarcation has been done on site, in the presence of both sides, and when.
Only then the area, and only then its conversion.

The 2025 judgment failed at step three and never reached step four. The conversion below is step four, and it is worth nothing without the first three.

One detail worth keeping

The land was "measured only using an inch tape". Not a chain, not a theodolite, not a GPS trace, a tape measure, on sloping hill land, in a proceeding that ran eight years and reached the High Court.

What resolution an Indian cadastral map actually carries is set out with the metre, and what the smallest measurable unit is at the scales the survey uses with the decimal. Neither is an inch tape.

The Size Nobody Wrote Down

Search the indexed Indian legal corpus for the nali beside its own size and it comes back empty, both ways round. What that is and is not: these are literal-string searches of one database, in two spellings of the figure. They cannot see a document the database does not index, and they cannot see the size written any other way: "2,160 sq. ft.", or spelled out in words. The honest claim is that the figure is absent from the largest searchable body of Indian law, in the forms tried, which is weaker than "the figure does not exist" and is the claim this page makes.

And it is not the only thing worth saying about the figure. Uttarakhand property sites publish the same chain (1 nali = 2,160 square feet = 240 square yards = 16 mutthi, with the mutthi at 135), and they agree with each other and with the court recitals above. That is not authority, and this series does not treat a converter site as one. It is convergence, and convergence between an unsourced published figure and the carry behaviour of nine independent judicial recitals is worth more than either alone. What none of it supplies is an instrument, which is the whole reason the grade is reported.

Query	Documents
`"nali" "2160 square feet"`	0
`"nali" "240 square yards"`	0
`"nali" "mutthi" doctypes:laws`	0
`"nali" doctypes:laws`	32, and see below

The sixteen-mutthi chain that gives the nali its size appears in no Indian statute or rule. That is what the third row measures: not one of the statutory documents containing nali also contains mutthi.

What the other 32 documents do contain was not established. They were not read one by one, and given that the word is a drain and a place name as well as a unit, this page does not assert what they are about. The claim it makes is the narrow one the query supports: whatever those documents are, none of them carries the chain.

That is why this series grades the nali reported, not sourced, the standard set at unit 30, where the same search for that unit's figure came back the same way. A figure is graded sourced here only when a named instrument, judgment or manual states it. What stands behind the nali instead is a live and internally consistent usage, which is worth something, and no instrument, which is worth saying.

What the usage does show

Sixteen mutthi make a nali, so in a correctly written recital no mutthi figure should reach sixteen. Nine mutthi figures were located in the Uttarakhand High Court:

Case	Recital
Ashish Nanda v. State of Uttaranchal, 9 November 2005	"2 Nali 4 Mutthis"
Swami Keshwanand v. State of Uttarakhand, 18 June 2026	"42 Nali 11 Mutthi", "32 Nali 8 Mutthi"
Ramesh Chandra Thapaliyal v. Anusuya Prasad, 28 July 2016	"1 Nali & 4 Mutthi", "3 Nali and 4 Mutthi", "3 Nali & 10 Mutthi"
WPMS/2465/2020, 21 December 2020	"1 nali 3 mutthi", "1 nali 7 mutthi", "12 muthi"

Four, eleven, eight, four, four, ten, three, seven, twelve. Not one reaches sixteen.

That is consistent with the ratio and it does not establish it. Nine observations is a weak test and the page will not pretend otherwise. The method comes from the chatak, where the same reasoning is used on a century of Bengal schedules and its own limits are stated at length; it is cited here rather than re-derived. What would break the reading is a single recital with a mutthi figure of sixteen or more, and none was found.

Two Spellings, and Which to Search First

Spelling	Query as run	Documents
muthi (मुठी)	`"muthi" "nali" doctypes:uttarakhand`	32
mutthi (मुट्ठी)	`"nali" "mutthi"`, no court filter	31

Those two queries are not the same query, and the page will not pretend they are. The mutthi count was run across the whole corpus and the muthi count inside one High Court. An unfiltered count can only be larger than the same count filtered, so 31 is an upper bound on the court-bound mutthi figure, and the comparison inside the Uttarakhand High Court is 32 against at most 31.

That asymmetry still yields one conclusion, and it runs one way. Whatever the court-bound mutthi figure turns out to be, it cannot exceed 31, and muthi is 32. So muthi is at least as common as mutthi in that court, and may be a great deal more so. What the evidence does not fix is how much more: the court-bound mutthi count has no lower bound here, and if it were small the gap would be wide. Re-running "nali" "mutthi" doctypes:uttarakhand would settle it and was not done; it is listed below as not done.

This is the third unit in this series whose sub-unit has more than one spelling, and the first where the two counts are not directly comparable. The Chatak page found the spelling every conversion site uses accounting for about six per cent of that unit's appearances in its own High Court; the Lessa page found three to one, both measured the same way on both sides. Here one side is court-bound and the other is not.

So there is an answer to which form to search first, and it is muthi. That is the opposite of what an earlier draft of this page concluded. It read the two figures as a tie and told the reader to pick neither first; the correction is recorded here rather than quietly made, because the reasoning is the point, an upper bound on one side and a measured figure on the other is a one-way comparison, not a tie.

What the bound does not license is stopping there. Search muthi first, then mutthi, and add them, less whatever overlap the two counts share, because mutthi could be anywhere from a handful of documents to thirty-one, and on this evidence there is no telling which.

Why This Unit Cannot Be Counted Without Binding It

Nali is an ordinary Hindi and Marathi word for a drain, a gutter or a channel. It is also a place-name element. Srikot Gangnali appears in one of the judgments above.

Query	Documents
`"nali" doctypes:uttarakhand`, bare	3,794
`"nali" "khasra" doctypes:uttarakhand`	185
`"nali" "bigha" doctypes:uttarakhand`	134
`"nali" doctypes:bombay`, a court with no Kumaoni land unit in it	148

The Bombay figure is the control. There is no nali of land in Maharashtra, and the word still returns 148 documents in that High Court, because there are drains in Maharashtra. Whatever fraction of the Uttarakhand High Court's 3,794 is drainage rather than land, it is not small.

So no bare count of this word is used as a measurement of the unit anywhere on this page. The two bare figures above are printed for one purpose only, to show how far they are from usable, and the Bombay 148 is then used deliberately, as a control on how much of the Uttarakhand figure is drainage rather than land. Every figure that carries an argument about the unit is bound to a second word from the land vocabulary: khasra, bigha or mutthi. This method was established on a word that is also a surname; here the competing sense is a common noun, which is worse, because a surname clusters in cause titles and a drain does not cluster anywhere.

Nali to Square Feet, Square Yards and Mutthi

Nali	Square feet	Square yards	Mutthi	Acres
1	2,160	240	16	0.049586776…
2	4,320	480	32	0.099173553…
3	6,480	720	48	0.148760330…
5	10,800	1,200	80	0.247933884…
10	21,600	2,400	160	0.495867768…
20	43,200	4,800	320	0.991735537…
50	108,000	12,000	800	2.479338842…
100	216,000	24,000	1,600	4.958677685…

The first three columns terminate and the fourth never does. A nali is 6⁄121 of an acre, and 121 is 11²; no power of ten will clear it, so every acre figure in this table is cut short with an ellipsis rather than rounded up into. The generated conversion tables further down the page round instead, to the series' standard display precision, and print no ellipsis; where the two disagree in the last digit, this table is the one that has not rounded. Twenty nali is 0.991735537… acres. Not one acre, and the gap is 360 square feet, which is exactly a sixth of a nali. That sixth is the recurring sixth in 20.1666…, seen from the other end.

The three nali at issue in the 2025 Champawat case is 6,480 square feet, or 602.0116992 square metres.

Converting a Compound Figure: "3 Nali 10 Mutthi"

Every recital this page quotes is written in the compound form, and none of the tables above converts one. Reduce to mutthi, convert once.

Step
Nali to mutthi	3 × 16	48
Mutthi		10
Total		58 mutthi
Square feet	58 × 135	7,830
Square yards	7,830 ÷ 9	870
Square metres	7,830 × 0.09290304	727.4308032
Acres	7,830 ÷ 43,560	0.179752066…

The same method on the lease in Swami Keshwanand, which the Court records as cut from 42 nali 11 mutthi to 32 nali 8 mutthi:

	Mutthi	Square feet
42 nali 11 mutthi	683	92,205
32 nali 8 mutthi	520	70,200
The reduction	163	22,005

22,005 square feet is 0.505165289… acres, the lease lost slightly over half an acre. The judgment prints both figures and computes neither, which is the ordinary condition of a hill land record: the arithmetic is easy and nobody does it.

Reduce to the smaller unit first. Converting the nali and the mutthi separately and adding works too, but it invites the compounding of two roundings, which is exactly what the Lessa page catches an Assam drafter doing in a live building rule.

The Nali and the Lessa Are the Same Area

A nali is 2,160 square feet. So are fifteen Assam lessa.

	Square feet	Square metres
1 nali (Kumaon, Garhwal)	2,160	200.6705664
15 lessa (Assam)	2,160	200.6705664

Two units at opposite ends of the Himalaya, with no shared vocabulary, no shared ladder and no shared history located, landing on one number.

It is a coincidence and this page says so. 2,160 is 240 square yards and also fifteen twelve-foot squares, and nothing connects the two derivations. What makes it worth a table is that a live Assam building rule glosses exactly this quantity as "200 sq. m", when it is 200.6705664. The same rounding, applied to a Kumaoni nali, would understate it by 0.334%, about 7.2 square feet a nali, or 144 square feet on twenty of them, which is more than a mutthi.

Three Mistakes That Change the Answer

Treating twenty nali as an acre. It is 0.991735537… acres, short by 360 square feet, a sixth of a nali. Over a ten-acre holding the error is a nali and two thirds. The count per acre is 20.1666…, and the recurring sixth is not a rounding artefact but the acre's own factor of eleven.

Converting a figure that has not been identified. The 2025 judgment above is the whole argument: an area in nali with no boundary, no measurement in feet or metres and no on-site demarcation could not establish which land was meant, and the arithmetic was never reached. Do the identification first.

Searching one spelling of the sub-unit. Muthi returns 32 documents in the Uttarakhand High Court and mutthi 31 across the whole corpus, two queries that are not the same query. What the two figures do settle is which to search first (muthi, because 31 can only be an upper bound and 32 is a measurement), and what they do not settle is by how much, so run both and add them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many square feet is 1 nali? 2,160, 240 square yards, or 200.6705664 square metres exactly. The figure is absent from the indexed Indian legal corpus in the forms searched, so this series grades it reported rather than sourced: it comes from a consistent usage in the Uttarakhand High Court rather than from any instrument.

How many mutthi in 1 nali? Sixteen, so a mutthi is 135 square feet. The chain appears in court recitals and in no Indian statute or rule: not one statutory document containing nali also contains mutthi. What those statutory documents do contain was not established and is not asserted.

How many nali in 1 acre? 20.1666…, which recurs. Exactly 121⁄6. Twenty nali is 0.991735537… acres, short of one by 360 square feet, a sixth of a nali, which is the same sixth as the one in 121⁄6.

Is it spelt mutthi or muthi? Both are in use. Search muthi (मुठी) first: bound to nali, it returns 32 documents in the Uttarakhand High Court, while mutthi (मुट्ठी) returns 31 across the whole corpus, which can only be an upper bound on its court-bound figure. So muthi is at least as common in that court and may be much more so. Run both spellings and add them; how far apart they really are is not established.

Where is the nali used? The Uttarakhand hills: Kumaon and Garhwal. It is a hill unit, and it sits beside the local kachha bigha rather than the pucca one; the Bigha page sets out the regional values and grades them.

Does any Indian law define the nali? No. Thirty-two statutory documents contain the word, and none of them carries the sixteen-mutthi chain that gives the unit its size. The phrases that would state the size return nothing at all, in the two spellings searched, which is the limit on that finding.

Why is the acre figure the only one that recurs? Because an acre carries a factor of 11² and a nali does not clear it. A nali is 6⁄121 of an acre. Every other conversion on this page terminates, and the Guntha page shows why: the guntha closes almost every chain in this series, and the nali is the exception it names.

Can a nali figure identify my plot? No, and a High Court said so in June 2025. An area is not a boundary. Establish the khasra number, the four boundaries from the deed, and whether an on-site demarcation has been done, then convert.

Is 1 nali the same as 15 lessa? In area, yes: both are exactly 2,160 square feet. They are unrelated units from opposite ends of the Himalaya and the coincidence has no significance beyond the arithmetic, but it is exact.

Sources and Method

The evidence grade, stated first. The nali is graded reported, not sourced in this series, and this research is why. A figure is graded sourced here only where a named instrument, judgment or manual states it, and none states 2,160 square feet or 240 square yards. The usage is live, consistent and judicially recited; the definition is absent.

Documents.

A. K. Jain v. District Magistrate, Champawat, Uttarakhand HC, Writ Petition 2607 of 2017 (M/S), 2 June 2025, 2025:UHC:4654 (Ashish Naithani J). The Patwari's report, the inch tape, the absence of demarcation, and the boundaries that "differ materially".
Ashish Nanda v. State of Uttaranchal, Uttarakhand HC, 9 November 2005: "2 Nali 4 Mutthis".
Ramesh Chandra Thapaliyal v. Anusuya Prasad, Uttarakhand HC, 28 July 2016, three recitals.
Swami Keshwanand v. State of Uttarakhand, Uttarakhand HC, 18 June 2026, a lease reduced from "42 Nali 11 Mutthi" to "32 Nali 8 Mutthi". That date is as the database records it and was not checked against a copy of the judgment; it is three months before this page's own last-updated date and the most recent thing cited here, so a reader relying on this case should confirm it. It is also the one claim on this page that none of the arithmetic checks behind it can reach.
WPMS/2465/2020, Uttarakhand HC, 21 December 2020: three recitals including the muthi spelling.

Counting, and why it is done differently here. This unit's word is a common noun, a drain, so a bare count of it measures plumbing as much as land. The two bare counts on the page are there for two different reasons. The Uttarakhand figure of 3,794 is printed to show how far a bare count is from usable; the Bombay figure of 148 is used, as a control on how much of it is drainage, because that court has no Kumaoni land unit and the word still turns up there. Every count that carries an argument about the unit itself is bound to a second word from the land vocabulary. Queries were run singly on 10 September 2026, because the database treats bare terms as an AND and does not read OR; the filter was validated before use, a nonsense term under doctypes:uttarakhand returning nothing. A count of documents is not a count of transactions, and an English-language database under-reports the Hindi-language courts and the patwari records where this unit actually lives. Every figure here is a floor on one court's record, not a measurement of Uttarakhand.

Arithmetic. The nali is a round number of square yards, so almost everything about it is exact: 2,160 square feet, 240 square yards, 16 mutthi of 135, and a metric value that terminates because the foot is 0.3048 metre exactly. The single exception is the acre, and it is the interesting one, 6⁄121, which recurs in both directions. Where a figure ends in an ellipsis on this page it has been cut short rather than rounded up into, so the last digit shown is a digit that is there. Everything is held as a ratio of whole numbers and turned into a decimal only when printed; the conversion core below was re-derived by a second program that had no hand in writing it.

Computed here and stated in no source. Each is arithmetic on figures the documents themselves carry: the 360 square feet by which twenty nali falls short of an acre; the 6,480 square feet and 602.0116992 square metres of the three nali in the 2025 case; the identity between one nali and fifteen Assam lessa, and the 0.334% a "200 sq. m" gloss would cost on it; and the nine-recital carry test.

Searched for and not found, and asserted nowhere. Any Indian instrument defining the nali or the mutthi, or stating either in square feet or square yards in the forms searched, two literal spellings of each figure, which would not find "2,160 sq. ft." or a figure written out in words · whether the nali varies between Kumaon and Garhwal, or between districts. This page prints one value because one value is what the usage shows and no instrument fixes it, but no search was run that would detect a regional split, and on a unit with no statutory definition that possibility cannot be excluded · any instrument stating sixteen mutthi to the nali, the ratio resting on usage and on the carry behaviour of nine recitals · whether the muthi/mutthi split tracks district, decade or judge, the numbers being too small to test · any Uttarakhand rule prescribing how hill land is to be measured, which is what the 2025 criticism of the inch tape points at · any connection between the nali's 2,160 square feet and the Assam lessa's, which is treated here as a coincidence because nothing suggests otherwise.

On the sibling pages. The Bigha page owns the Uttarakhand hill bigha and its regional values; the Chatak page owns the carry-behaviour method and the spelling problem; the Lessa page owns the Assam chain and the building rule whose gloss this page borrows for comparison; the Guntha page owns the chain-closing finding that names this unit as its exception; the Square Mile page owns the rod that puts the eleven in the acre; the Dhur page owns the grading standard applied here. All are cited and none is restated.

Nali Conversion Quick Reference

Conversion	1 Nali	Note
Acre	0.049587	Recurring; Exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd
Ankanam	30 (Standard)	Region-specific; also 60 (Tirupati)
Ares	2.006705664	Exact; 100 m², the metric are
Bigha	0.317355 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills)	Region-specific; also 0.079339 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) · 0.238017 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.123967 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai)
Biswa	4.958678 (Himachal Pradesh)	Region-specific; also 1.586777 (UP / Rajasthan pucca) · 2.479339 (Rajasthan kachha) · 4.760331 (Punjab / Haryana old records)
Biswa Kacha	4.760331 (Punjab / Haryana revenue definition)	Region-specific; also 2.479339 (Rajasthan kachha reading)
Cent	4.958678	Recurring; One hundredth of an acre, exactly
Chatak	48	Exact; 5 sq yd exactly; 16 to the cottah, 968 to the acre. Reported, not stated by any instrument located
Decimal	4.958678	Recurring; One hundredth of an acre, exactly
Dhur	31.735537 (Bihar / Jharkhand (Patna chain))	Region-specific; also 600 (Tripura)
Dismil	4.958678	Recurring; The decimal under another name
Gaj	240	Exact; The square yard, 9 sq ft
Gajam	240	Exact; The square yard in Telugu, 9 sq ft
Ground	0.9	Exact; Tamil Nadu Urban Land Tax Act 1966, s.2(8-A): "an area comprising two hundred and twenty three square metres (two thousand and four hundred square feet)"
Guntha	1.983471	Recurring; 121 sq yd; 40 guntha = 1 acre exactly
Hectare	0.02006705664	Exact; 10,000 m² exactly
Kanal	0.396694 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 0.48 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 0.522647 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 0.592593 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Katha	1.586777 (Bihar state standard)	Region-specific; also 3 (West Bengal / Jharkhand) · 0.75 (Assam) · 1.239669 (Bihar (Chhapra))
Killa	0.049587	Recurring; The acre under its Punjabi name
Lessa	15	Exact; The 12-foot mauzadari jar squared (Assam Land Records Manual r.117); 20 to a katha, 100 to a bigha
Marla	7.933884 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 9.6 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 10.45293 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 11.851852 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Murabba	0.001983 (Punjab canal colony)	Region-specific; also 0.003174 (Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Canal))
Perch	7.933884	Recurring; 30.25 sq yd; 160 perches = 1 acre
Pura	0.0375	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	2,006,705.664	Exact; One ten-thousandth of a square metre
Square Feet	2,160	Exact; The base of this series
Square Inch	311,040	Exact; One 144th of a square foot
Square Karam	71.404959 (Standard (66-inch karam))	Region-specific; also 86.4 (Majha belt (60-inch karam)) · 94.076371 (Doaba belt (57.5-inch karam)) · 106.666667 (Kapurthala belt (54-inch karam))
Square Kilometer	0.0002006705664	Exact; 1,000,000 m²
Square Meter	200.6705664	Exact; The SI unit of area
Square Mile	0.0000775	Recurring; 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	240	Exact; 9 sq ft exactly

Nali to Acre

1 nali = 0.049587 acres, recurring. An acre is exact by definition: 43,560 sq ft = 4,840 sq yd.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that figure.

20.1666… nali to the acre, a recurring figure, because 43,560 ÷ 2,160 is 121/6. Carry the fraction rather than a rounded decimal: the sixth compounds with every nali, and on twenty of them it is already 360 square feet short of an acre.

The ratio is the fraction 6/121, 0.04958678…, which recurs.

Nali to Acre Formula

Acre = Nali × 6/121

Popular Nali to Acre Conversions

Nali	Acre
1	0.049587
2	0.099174
3	0.14876
5	0.247934
10	0.495868
20	0.991736
50	2.479339
100	4.958678
200	9.917355
500	24.793388
1,000	49.586777

Worked Example

5 nali × 6/121 = 0.247934 acres

Reverse Conversion: Acre to Nali

Nali = Acre × 121/6

Nali to Bigha

1 nali = 0.317355 bigha on the UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills definition. The bigha has no single national value. It is also 0.079339 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) · 0.238017 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) · 0.123967 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai) and 5 more per nali. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that figure.

In the Kumaon and Garhwal hills the bigha paired with the nali is a kachha one, not the pucca bigha of the plains, and this series carries it at 6,806.25 sq ft, about 3.15 nali. Treat that pairing as provisional. Other figures for a hill bigha are in circulation, no instrument fixes any of them, and. What is safe is the direction: a plains bigha applied to a hill holding overstates it several times over.

The ratio is the fraction 192/605, 0.31735537…, which recurs.

Nali to Bigha Formula

Bigha = Nali × 192/605 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills)

Popular Nali to Bigha Conversions

Nali	Bigha (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills)
1	0.317355
2	0.634711
3	0.952066
5	1.586777
10	3.173554
20	6.347107
50	15.867769
100	31.735537
200	63.471074
500	158.677686
1,000	317.355372

Bigha by Region

Bigha definition	Where it applies	1 bigha in sq ft	Bigha per nali	Terminates?	Evidence
UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca	Purvanchal, Awadh, Patna belt, east Rajasthan	27,225	0.079339	Recurring	sourced
UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)	West Uttar Pradesh	9,075	0.238017	Recurring	sourced
UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills (the definition used here)	West UP, Kumaon and Garhwal hills	6,806.25	0.317355	Recurring	sourced
Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai	Marwar, Gujarat, Terai	17,424	0.123967	Recurring	sourced
Madhya Pradesh	Madhya Pradesh	12,000	0.18	Exact	reported, not sourced
West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand	West Bengal, Assam, Ranchi	14,400	0.15	Exact	sourced
Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt	Himachal Pradesh, Rohtak, Hisar	8,712	0.247934	Recurring	sourced
Punjab / west Haryana	Punjab, kanal belt of Haryana	21,780	0.099174	Recurring	sourced
Haryana Ambala belt	Ambala, Gurugram, Faridabad, Karnal, Panipat	8,100	0.266667	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 nali × 192/605 = 1.586777 bigha

Reverse Conversion: Bigha to Nali

Nali = Bigha × 605/192 (UP kachha (5 biswa) / Uttarakhand hills)

Nali = Bigha × 605/48 (UP pucca / Bihar / Rajasthan pucca) Nali = Bigha × 605/144 (UP kachha (6⅔ biswa)) Nali = Bigha × 121/15 (Rajasthan kachha / Gujarat vigha / Uttarakhand Terai) Nali = Bigha ÷ 0.18 (Madhya Pradesh) Nali = Bigha ÷ 0.15 (West Bengal / Assam / Jharkhand) Nali = Bigha × 121/30 (Himachal Pradesh / Haryana Rohtak belt) Nali = Bigha × 121/12 (Punjab / west Haryana) Nali = Bigha × 3.75 (Haryana Ambala belt)

Nali to Biswa

1 nali = 4.958678 biswa on the Himachal Pradesh definition. The biswa has no single national value. It is also 1.586777 (UP / Rajasthan pucca) · 2.479339 (Rajasthan kachha) · 4.760331 (Punjab / Haryana old records) per nali. Every definition this series has located is set out with the evidence behind it.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that figure.

The nali belongs to a terrace system and the biswa to a bigha system, and the two meet only through square feet. Where a Kumaon record carries both, the biswa in it is the five-biswa hill reading, not the Uttar Pradesh pucca one.

The ratio is the fraction 600/121, 4.95867769…, which recurs.

Nali to Biswa Formula

Biswa = Nali × 600/121 (Himachal Pradesh)

Popular Nali to Biswa Conversions

Nali	Biswa (Himachal Pradesh)
1	4.958678
2	9.917355
3	14.876033
5	24.793388
10	49.586777
20	99.173554
50	247.933884
100	495.867769
200	991.735537
500	2,479.338843
1,000	4,958.677686

Biswa by Region

Biswa definition	Where it applies	1 biswa in sq ft	Biswa per nali	Terminates?	Evidence
UP / Rajasthan pucca	Uttar Pradesh, east Rajasthan	1,361.25	1.586777	Recurring	sourced
Rajasthan kachha	Marwar	871.2	2.479339	Recurring	no instrument located
Punjab / Haryana old records	Punjab, Haryana	453.75	4.760331	Recurring	sourced
Himachal Pradesh (the definition used here)	Himachal Pradesh	435.6	4.958678	Recurring	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.

Popular Nali to Biswa, UP / Rajasthan pucca

Nali	Biswa (1,361.25 sq ft)
1	1.586777
2	3.173554
3	4.760331
5	7.933884
10	15.867769
20	31.735537
50	79.338843
100	158.677686
200	317.355372
500	793.38843
1,000	1,586.77686

Popular Nali to Biswa, Rajasthan kachha

Nali	Biswa (871.2 sq ft)
1	2.479339
2	4.958678
3	7.438017
5	12.396694
10	24.793388
20	49.586777
50	123.966942
100	247.933884
200	495.867769
500	1,239.669421
1,000	2,479.338843

Popular Nali to Biswa, Punjab / Haryana old records

Nali	Biswa (453.75 sq ft)
1	4.760331
2	9.520661
3	14.280992
5	23.801653
10	47.603306
20	95.206612
50	238.016529
100	476.033058
200	952.066116
500	2,380.165289
1,000	4,760.330579

Worked Example

5 nali × 600/121 = 24.793388 biswa

Reverse Conversion: Biswa to Nali

Nali = Biswa × 121/600 (Himachal Pradesh)

Nali = Biswa × 121/192 (UP / Rajasthan pucca) Nali = Biswa × 121/300 (Rajasthan kachha) Nali = Biswa × 121/576 (Punjab / Haryana old records)

Nali to Guntha

1 nali = 1.983471 gunthas, recurring. A guntha is 121 sq yd; 40 guntha = 1 acre exactly.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that 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 240/121, 1.98347107…, which recurs.

Nali to Guntha Formula

Guntha = Nali × 240/121

Popular Nali to Guntha Conversions

Nali	Guntha
1	1.983471
2	3.966942
3	5.950413
5	9.917355
10	19.834711
20	39.669421
50	99.173554
100	198.347107
200	396.694215
500	991.735537
1,000	1,983.471074

Worked Example

5 nali × 240/121 = 9.917355 gunthas

Reverse Conversion: Guntha to Nali

Nali = Guntha × 121/240

Nali to Hectare

1 nali = 0.02006705664 hectares, exact. A hectare is 10,000 m² exactly.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that figure.

4.6296… nali to the hectare, recurring. Uttarakhand's record of rights is metric while the hill market is not, so a terraced holding is routinely described in both and reconciled in neither.

The ratio is the fraction 3,919,347/195,312,500, or 0.02006705664 exactly.

Nali to Hectare Formula

Hectare = Nali × 0.02006705664

Popular Nali to Hectare Conversions

Nali	Hectare
1	0.02006705664
2	0.04013411328
3	0.06020116992
5	0.1003352832
10	0.2006705664
20	0.4013411328
50	1.003352832
100	2.006705664
200	4.013411328
500	10.03352832
1,000	20.06705664

Worked Example

5 nali × 0.02006705664 = 0.1003352832 hectares

Reverse Conversion: Hectare to Nali

Nali = Hectare ÷ 0.02006705664

Nali to Square Feet

1 nali = 2,160 square feet, exact. A square foot is the base of this series.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that figure.

2,160 square feet to the nali, 240 square yards. Sixteen mutthi make a nali; the mutthi is 135 sq ft and is still quoted for kitchen gardens.

Where the square foot fits into the nali's own record is set out in Nali to Square Feet, Square Yards and Mutthi above; what follows is the arithmetic.

Nali to Square Feet Formula

Square Feet = Nali × 2,160

Popular Nali to Square Feet Conversions

Nali	Square Feet
1	2,160
2	4,320
3	6,480
5	10,800
10	21,600
20	43,200
50	108,000
100	216,000
200	432,000
500	1,080,000
1,000	2,160,000

Worked Example

5 nali × 2,160 = 10,800 square feet

Reverse Conversion: Square Feet to Nali

Nali = Square Feet ÷ 2,160

Nali to Square Meter

1 nali = 200.6705664 square metres, exact. A square metre is the SI unit of area.

Computed on the nali of 2,160 square feet, which this series grades reported, not sourced: no instrument, judgment or manual located states that figure.

The ratio is the fraction 15,677,388/78,125, or 200.6705664 exactly.

Nali to Square Meter Formula

Square Meter = Nali × 200.6705664

Popular Nali to Square Meter Conversions

Nali	Square Meter
1	200.6705664
2	401.3411328
3	602.0116992
5	1,003.352832
10	2,006.705664
20	4,013.411328
50	10,033.52832
100	20,067.05664
200	40,134.11328
500	100,335.2832
1,000	200,670.5664

Worked Example

5 nali × 200.6705664 = 1,003.352832 square metres

Reverse Conversion: Square Meter to Nali

Nali = Square Meter ÷ 200.6705664

Nali 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.

Nali to Ankanam

1 nali = 30 ankanam on the Standard definition; 60 on the Tirupati definition. Ankanam = Nali × 30 (Standard) · reverse Nali = Ankanam ÷ 30

Nali	Ankanam (Standard)
1	30
2	60
3	90
5	150
10	300
20	600
50	1,500
100	3,000
200	6,000
500	15,000
1,000	30,000