Real Estate and Land Measurement
Land has historically been the highest form of wealth, and so every culture developed its own specific ways to measure area.
Acres and Hectares
- Hectare (ha): The standard metric unit for land, equal to 10,000 square meters (a square 100m on a side).
- Acre: An imperial unit originally defined as the amount of land a yoke of oxen could till in one day. 1 Hectare ≈ 2.47 Acres.
South Asian Land Measures
Real estate in South Asia relies heavily on localized traditional units:
- Bigha: Varies wildly by region. In Bengal, it's ~1,338 m², but in Uttar Pradesh, it's ~2,530 m².
- Ropani: The primary land measure in the hilly regions of Nepal (~508 m²).
- Marla & Kanal: Predominant in Pakistan and northern India.
East Asian Real Estate
When buying an apartment in East Asia, you rarely use square meters:
- Pyeong (평): The standard in South Korea (~3.3 m²).
- Tsubo (坪): The exact Japanese equivalent to the Pyeong (~3.3 m²), originally based on the size of two Tatami mats.
- Mu (亩): Used in China for agricultural land (~666 m²).
Middle Eastern & Southeast Asian Units
- Dunam / Dönüm: An Ottoman-origin unit used across the Middle East (Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Iraq). Now standardized to exactly 1,000 m².
- Rai (ไร่): The standard Thai unit of land, equal to 1,600 m².