Among various standard units used globally to express land measurement, acre is the most common. It is used in both the British imperial system, as well as the US customary system. Along with local units, such as bigha and bisava, acre is commonly used to express the size of large land parcels across states in India.
What is an acre?
One of the oldest globally used land measurement units, acre is derived from the ancient English word, aker, which denotes open field. It is derived from Latin ager, which means field. Along with the full name, its abbreviation “ac” is also used as the symbol of unit.
Among all English-speaking countries, land is traditionally measured by acre. Popularly used across the globe, from Canada to Jamaica and from the US to India, acre is still popular in the UK.
How to convert acre in other measurement units?
Considering acre has no standard measurement, its conversion in other units is incumbent upon the geography it is used, and the local standards applied to the conversion.
Originally used to describe a field that a farmer could plough in a single day, the reference of acre is found as early as 732 AD. Traditionally used throughout the British Empire, the Anglo-Saxon era, acre was defined as a strip of land 1 × 1/10 furlong, or 40 × 4 rods (660 × 66 feet). An acre is defined as an area one furlong long by four rods wide.
While various area units were defined as the size of a square with sides equal to a straightforward multiple of a length unit, such as the square yard, acre was never conceptualised as a square. Therefore, the precise size of an acre used to be contingent upon the specific yard measurement used as a reference. Presently, an acre is same as 4,840 square yard.
Conversion of acre in other measurement units
| 1 acre | 0.00404686 square km |
| 1 acre | 0.0015625 square mile |
| 1 acre | 43,560 square feet |
| 1 acre | 4,047 square metre |
| 1 acre | 4,840 square yard |
| 1 acre | 0.4047 hectare |
| 1 acre | 40,468,600 square centimetre |
Difference between acre and bigha
In India, land parcels are measured using measurement unit, bigha. Therefore, knowing its conversion into the more widely used acre becomes important, attracting a wide audience in terms of real estate sale.
As the size of a bigha differs from state-to-state, it becomes necessary to know the exact size of a bigha in states where the land is located.
1 bigha in square feet (sqft)
| State | 1 bigha in sqft |
| Assam | 14,400 sqft |
| Bihar | 27,220 sqft |
| Gujarat | 17,427 sqft |
| Haryana | 27,225 sqft |
| Himachal Pradesh | 8,712 sqft |
| Jharkhand | 27,211 sqft |
| Punjab | 9,070 sqft |
| Rajasthan 1 pucca bigha | 27,225 sqft |
| Madhya Pradesh | 12,000 sqft |
| Uttarakhand | 6,804 sqft |
| Uttar Pradesh | 27,000 sqft |
| West Bengal | 14,348.29 sqft |
Bigha to acre conversion
| 1 acre in Bigha
1 acre: 5 Bigha in Himachal Pradesh 1 acre: 4 Bigha in Punjab 1 acre: 4 Bigha in Haryana 1 acre: 4 Bigha in Uttarakhand 1 acre: 3.025004 Bigha in West Bengal 1 acre: 3.025004 Bigha in Assam 1 acre: 1.613335 Bigha in Uttar Pradesh 1 acre: 1.613335 Bigha in Odisha 1 acre: 1.600296 Bigha in Jharkhand 1 acre: 1.600296 Bigha in Bihar 1 acre: 1.613335 Bigha in Tripura 1 acre: 1.598241 Bigha in Rajasthan |
How to convert bigha into other units?
With Housing.com online area converter, converting one unit into another is a cakewalk. Try our online calculator now.
FAQs
Which are the states where bigha is used as a land measurement unit in India?
Bigha as a land measurement unit is used in Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal.
Which are the countries where acre is used for land measurement?
Acre as a measurement unit for land is used in Canada, Jamaica, the US, Spain, France, Germany, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
What is the length and width of one acre?
If an acre were a square with equal sides, each side would measure approximately 63.6 meters or 208.7 feet. However, an acre doesn't have to be a square; it can have any shape. For example, if it were a circle, it would have a radius of about 35.9 metre, a diameter of 71.8 metre, and a circumference of approximately 225.5 metre.
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