Acres to Hectares

Much of the American Midwest and West was surveyed under the Public Land Survey System, which cuts land into townships of 36 sections. A section is one square mile, or 640 acres, which is 259 ha. The quarter section of 160 acres, the plot granted under the Homestead Act of 1862, is 64.75 ha, and the familiar forty-acre parcel is 16.19 ha.

Those round acre numbers turn into awkward hectares, which is why international buyers and researchers often need this page. Going the other way usually produces awkward acres instead; for that direction use hectares to acres.

The United States uses acres for nearly all land. In the UK, estate agents and farmers still talk in acres even though official land records and farm payment schemes use hectares, so a single sale can quote both. Canada, India, Pakistan and parts of Australia's rural market also use acres in everyday trade, alongside local units.

Familiar places help with scale: New York's Central Park covers 843 acres, about 341 ha. A typical American suburban half-acre lot is 0.2 ha, or 2,023 m². For lot sizes in feet, see acres to square feet.

Multiply by 0.4 and add 1%: 250 acres × 0.4 = 100, plus 1 gives 101 ha, against the exact 101.17. For deeds and legal descriptions keep at least four decimal places, since 0.4047 rather than 0.404686 drifts by about 0.3 ha per 10,000 acres. The exact definition is 4,046.8564224 m² per acre, which the unit converter uses internally.