Area Converter
Enter an area and its unit to see the equivalent in square centimeters, square meters, square kilometers, hectares, square feet, acres, and square miles.
How area conversion works
Metric area units scale by the square of their linear conversion factor — since 1 m = 100 cm, 1 m² = 100² = 10,000 cm², not just 100 cm². The same squaring applies going from meters to kilometers.
A hectare is exactly 10,000 m² (a 100 m × 100 m square), commonly used for land area. An acre is exactly 4,046.8564224 m², historically defined as the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day.
Frequently asked questions
How many square meters are in a hectare?
1 hectare equals exactly 10,000 square meters.
How many acres are in a hectare?
1 hectare is approximately 2.471 acres, since 1 acre equals about 4,046.86 square meters.
Why isn't converting area units just a simple unit-to-unit factor?
Area is two-dimensional, so converting between linear units of different sizes requires squaring the conversion factor — for example, since 1 ft = 0.3048 m, 1 ft² = 0.3048² ≈ 0.0929 m², not 0.3048 m².