Acreage Calculator
A 200 ft by 300 ft parcel covers 60,000 square feet, which works out to 1.3774 acres. This acreage calculator converts a rectangular lot's length and width into acres, or goes the other way and converts an acre figure into square feet, square yards, square meters, and hectares. It uses the standard US survey definition of an acre, 43,560 square feet, so the results match what you would see on a plat map, a real estate listing, or a county assessor's parcel record. Buying land, comparing lot sizes, or estimating fencing and seeding costs all start with the same question: how big is this actually? Listings sometimes give a length and width in feet, sometimes give a raw acreage figure, and sometimes give a metric area. This tool accepts either a length and width or an acre value and returns every common unit at once, so there is no need to look up the conversion factor or do the division by hand. The dimension-based mode assumes a rectangular parcel, since length times width only describes rectangles correctly. For an irregular or multi-sided lot, split it into rectangular sections, calculate each section separately, and add the resulting acreages together, or use a total square footage figure from a survey directly in the acre value mode instead.
Quick answer
One acre equals exactly 43,560 square feet, 4,840 square yards, 4,046.8564224 square meters, and 0.40468564224 hectares.
What this tells you
- •One acre equals exactly 43,560 square feet, 4,840 square yards, 4,046.8564224 square meters, and 0.40468564224 hectares.
- •From dimensions, square footage is length in feet times width in feet, and acres is that square footage divided by 43,560.
- •From an acre value, square footage is acres times 43,560, and the same multiplication pattern applies for square yards, square meters, and hectares.
- •The dimension mode only works for rectangular or square parcels, since it multiplies two straight side lengths together.
- •Results are rounded to 4 decimal places, which is precise enough for comparing lot sizes but not a substitute for a licensed survey.
- •A hectare is larger than an acre. One hectare equals about 2.47 acres, so hectare figures are always smaller numbers than the matching acre figures.
How to Use
- 1Choose a calculation mode: From length and width for a rectangular parcel, or From an acre value to convert an existing acreage figure.
- 2In dimension mode, enter the length and width of the parcel in feet. Use a tape measure reading, a plat map dimension, or a listing's stated lot dimensions.
- 3In acre value mode, enter the number of acres you already have, whether that is a whole number like 5 or a decimal like 0.25.
- 4Click Calculate to see the acreage figure along with the matching square feet, square yards, square meters, and hectares.
- 5Compare the result against the source document, such as a listing, deed, or survey, to confirm the units line up before using the figure for a purchase or a materials estimate.
How It Works
Formula
Acres = (Length ft x Width ft) / 43,560. Or, from acres: Square feet = Acres x 43,560, Square yards = Acres x 4,840, Square meters = Acres x 4,046.8564224, Hectares = Acres x 0.40468564224.An acre is a fixed unit of land area equal to 43,560 square feet under the US survey definition, a figure that traces back to a historical furlong-by-chain measurement and has stayed standard in US land surveying and real estate ever since. To find acreage from a rectangular lot, multiply the length by the width to get the total square footage, then divide by 43,560. To go the other direction, multiply an acre figure by 43,560 to get square feet, by 4,840 to get square yards, by 4,046.8564224 to get square meters, or by 0.40468564224 to get hectares. For example, a 150 ft by 200 ft parcel covers 30,000 square feet, and 30,000 divided by 43,560 is 0.6887 acres. All four output units scale directly from the same square footage figure, so the calculator computes square footage first in both modes and derives everything else from it.
Calculation note: values are processed in the order shown above, using the current input units.
Worked Examples
A 200 ft by 300 ft residential lot
200 x 300 = 60,000 square feet. Dividing by 43,560 gives 1.3774 acres, which is a typical size for a larger suburban building lot.
A 100 ft by 100 ft square parcel
100 x 100 = 10,000 square feet, or 0.2296 acres. A square parcel measuring roughly 105 ft by 105 ft comes out to about 0.2531 acres, close to the commonly cited quarter-acre suburban lot, though the two figures are not identical.
Converting a 2-acre parcel into other units
2 acres x 43,560 = 87,120 square feet. The same 2 acres equals 9,680 square yards (2 x 4,840), 8,093.7128 square meters (2 x 4,046.8564224), and 0.8094 hectares (2 x 0.40468564224).
A quarter-acre parcel in metric terms
0.25 acres x 43,560 = 10,890 square feet, a common suburban lot size in many US zoning codes. In metric terms that same lot is about 1,011.71 square meters, or roughly 0.1 hectares.
Acres to Square Feet, Square Yards, Meters, and Hectares
Common acreage values converted to the other four units this calculator supports.
| Acres | Square Feet | Square Yards | Square Meters | Hectares |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 4,356 | 484 | 404.6856 | 0.0405 |
| 0.25 | 10,890 | 1,210 | 1,011.7141 | 0.1012 |
| 0.5 | 21,780 | 2,420 | 2,023.4282 | 0.2023 |
| 1 | 43,560 | 4,840 | 4,046.8564 | 0.4047 |
| 2 | 87,120 | 9,680 | 8,093.7128 | 0.8094 |
| 5 | 217,800 | 24,200 | 20,234.2821 | 2.0234 |
| 10 | 435,600 | 48,400 | 40,468.5642 | 4.0469 |
| 40 | 1,742,400 | 193,600 | 161,874.2569 | 16.1874 |
| 160 | 6,969,600 | 774,400 | 647,497.0276 | 64.7497 |
160 acres is a US quarter section, a common unit in historical Public Land Survey System descriptions, equal to a quarter mile by a quarter mile.
Getting a feel for what an acre looks like
An acre is easier to work with once it has a mental picture attached. A square acre measures close to 209 ft by 209 ft, since the square root of 43,560 is about 208.71. A full American football field, measured from goal line to goal line including both end zones at roughly 360 ft by 160 ft, covers about 1.32 acres. Measured as just the playing field between the goal lines, excluding the end zones, it works out closer to 1.10 acres. Either figure is an approximation, since actual field dimensions vary slightly by level of play and stadium.
A standard city block does not have one fixed size. Blocks in older grid cities like Portland can run under an acre, while blocks in cities like New York or Chicago are often several acres, so treating city blocks as a reliable acreage benchmark is unreliable without knowing the specific city's block dimensions. A more consistent reference point is the quarter-acre suburban lot, roughly 10,890 square feet, which shows up often in US zoning minimums for single-family homes and corresponds to a parcel close to 105 ft by 105 ft if it happens to be square.
For larger rural or agricultural parcels, acreage is often described in fractions of a section under the Public Land Survey System used across much of the western and midwestern United States. A full section is one square mile, or 640 acres. A quarter section is 160 acres, and a quarter of that quarter section, sometimes called a forty, is 40 acres, a size that appears often in older land deeds and rural addresses.
Common mistakes
- Treating square feet as if it were the same as acres. A 10,000 square foot lot is not 10,000 acres, it is about 0.23 acres, since one acre equals 43,560 square feet.
- Using the dimension mode on a non-rectangular parcel. Length times width only produces an accurate area for rectangles and squares. An L-shaped, triangular, or irregular lot needs to be split into rectangular sections first, with each section's acreage added together afterward.
- Mixing up feet and yards when entering dimensions. A lot measured in yards needs to be converted to feet first (multiply by 3), or the resulting acreage will come out roughly nine times too small.
- Assuming a listed lot size already accounts for setbacks, easements, or unusable terrain. Total parcel acreage from a deed or survey does not automatically equal buildable area.
- Rounding intermediate steps by hand. Dividing a rounded square footage figure by 43,560, instead of using the exact figure, can shift the final acreage enough to matter when comparing similarly sized lots.
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