Area Converter
Pick a unit on each side, type an area and the converted value appears straight away. The guide lists the exact size of every unit in square meters, with worked examples and the mistakes to avoid.
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Created by the Reeliy Editorial Team. Last updated: Oct 19, 2026
What is area and how is it measured?
Area tells you how much flat surface a shape covers: a floor, a field, a sheet of paper, a lake. It is measured in a length unit multiplied by itself. One square meter (m2) is the area of a square whose sides are each one meter long, and one square foot (sq ft) is the same idea built from a foot.
Because the length is squared, area units grow much faster than length units. A kilometer is 1,000 meters, but a square kilometer is 1,000,000 square meters. Land has a few units of its own that are not written as a squared length: the acre, the hectare and the are.
Every unit in square meters
The converter first expresses your number in square meters and then converts that into the unit you chose. These are the values it uses:
| Unit | Symbol | Square meters |
|---|---|---|
| Square kilometer | km2 | 1,000,000 |
| Hectare | ha | 10,000 |
| Are | a | 100 |
| Square meter | m2 | 1 |
| Square decimeter | dm2 | 0.01 |
| Square centimeter | cm2 | 0.0001 |
| Square millimeter | mm2 | 0.000001 |
| Square mile | sq mi | 2,589,988.110336 |
| Acre | ac | 4,046.8564224 |
| Square yard | sq yd | 0.83612736 |
| Square foot | sq ft | 0.09290304 |
| Square inch | sq in | 0.00064516 |
How to convert between area units
Multiply the amount by the size of the starting unit in square meters, then divide by the size of the target unit in square meters.
result = amount × (square meters per starting unit) ÷ (square meters per target unit)
- 5 acres to hectares: 5 × 4,046.8564224 = 20,234.282112 m2; divided by 10,000 this is 2.0234 ha.
- 2,400 sq ft to square meters: 2,400 × 0.09290304 = 222.967296 m2.
- 3 square miles to acres: 3 × 2,589,988.110336 = 7,769,964.331008 m2; divided by 4,046.8564224 this is exactly 1,920 acres, because a square mile holds 640 acres.
The two boxes work as input and answer. Type in the first box, choose the units from the two lists, and the second box updates with every keystroke.
Mistakes to avoid
- Using a length factor for an area. One mile is 1.609344 km, yet one square mile is 2.589988 km2, which is 1.609344 multiplied by itself.
- Mixing up the hectare and the acre. A hectare is about 2.47 acres, so it is the larger of the two.
- Forgetting that an are is tiny. One are is only 100 m2, a 10 m by 10 m square; a hectare is 100 ares.
- Reading the wrong symbol. Write m2 for square meters and use km2 only for square kilometers; a bare "km" or "mi" in a listing may refer to a length.
Answers are rounded to 10 decimal places and shown with thousands separators from 1,000 upward. A very small answer is printed in exponent form, so 1e-10 means 0.0000000001.
Popular area conversions
For the most frequent pairs there are dedicated pages with a table and extra context:
- Square meters to square feet and square feet to square meters
- Acres to hectares and acres to square feet
- Square feet to acres
- Square miles to square kilometers and square kilometers to square miles
- Square miles to square feet
To find the area of a shape before converting it, use the area calculator; for rooms and floors there is also the square footage calculator.
Frequently asked questions
How many square feet are in a square meter?
One square meter is about 10.7639 square feet. Going the other way, one square foot is exactly 0.09290304 square meters.
How many acres are in a hectare?
A hectare is 10,000 square meters, which is about 2.4711 acres. One acre is about 0.4047 hectares.
How many square meters are in a square kilometer?
A square kilometer contains 1,000,000 square meters, because both sides of the square are 1,000 meters long.
Why is a square mile not 1.609 square kilometers?
Area scales with the square of length. A mile is 1.609344 km, so a square mile is 1.609344 × 1.609344 = 2.589988 square kilometers.
References
- Thompson, A. and Taylor, B. N. (2008). Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI), NIST Special Publication 811, 2008 edition.
- Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, The International System of Units (SI Brochure), 9th edition, for the hectare as a unit accepted for use with the SI.
Cite this converter and page
If you use this page in your work, you can cite it as:
Reeliy Editorial Team. (2026). Area Converter. Reeliy. https://reeliy.com/converters/area-unit-converter“Area Converter.” Reeliy, 2026, https://reeliy.com/converters/area-unit-converter.