What is a Acre?

The acre equals exactly 4,046.8564224 square meters (or 43,560 square feet) and is the standard unit for American and British farmland, real estate, and recreational property. The unit's origin is medieval: an acre was the area a yoke of oxen could plow in one day, traditionally a strip 1 furlong (660 ft) by 1 chain (66 ft). Despite metric adoption in many fields, the acre persists in property records throughout the US and UK. A standard American football field (excluding end zones) is about 1.32 acres. The largest US state, Alaska, contains about 365 million acres. The acre relates to the square foot (43,560 ft² = 1 acre), the hectare (1 ha ≈ 2.471 acres), the square mile (640 acres = 1 mi²), and the square meter (1 acre ≈ 4,047 m²). US farms average around 446 acres, and the average UK farm is about 215 acres.

Visual reference for how the acre relates to other area units. Each row links to the full converter for that pair.

• US farmland and ranches
• UK rural property and estates
• Canadian rural property (legal survey system)

• ✓1 acre = 43,560 ft² = 0.4047 ha.
• ✓640 acres = 1 square mile — a "section" in US land survey.
• ✓An acre is 43,560 ft² — a useful number for US real-estate calculations.

• ✗Using "acre" in modern European property — use hectares or m² instead.
• ✗Assuming an acre is a specific shape — it is only an area (any shape).
• ✗Multiplying acres by 4000 m² — correct value is 4046.86.