Square Feet and Hectars Converter
Using the Square Feet and Hectars Converter
This converter allows you to convert between two commonly used units of area, an imperial unit of square feet, and a metric unit of hectares.
Start by choosing between the American and British spelling of units in the text.
Your first choice will take place in the ‘CONVERT FROM’ section, where you select your input unit out of two options, square feet (ft2) or hectares (ha).
The second choice will take place in the ‘CONVERT TO’ section, where you select your output unit out of the same two options.
You can also choose to work with the units that are selected by default, or simply click on the icon with the arrows in opposite directions to reverse the order of the input and output units.
Once you are happy with the choice of your input and output units, write in the value you want to convert as a decimal number into the ‘VALUE TO CONVERT’ section of the converter.
Follow by choosing the number of decimal places you want your result rounded toward and click on ‘CONVERT’.
Your result will appear as a decimal number rounded toward the desired number of decimal places, alongside the conversion rate between the units and a convenient ‘COPY’ button, which allows you to copy your result and use it in another piece of writing.
Converting Square Feet and Hectars Manually
The conversion rate between square feet and hectares is based on their definitions and the equivalent values between them.
Since square feet belong to the imperial system, while hectares belong to the metric system, the conversion rates will not be neat numbers and will have to be rounded to a reasonable number of decimal places.
A square foot is defined as a unit of an area determined by a square with a side length of 1 foot.
A hectare is defined as a unit of an area determined by a square with a side length of 100 meters, or simply as 10,000 m2.
The following two relationships define the conversion rates:
| Unit | Equivalent | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 hectare | 107,639.1 ft2 | The value is rounded to 1 decimal place as an adequate approximation and defines a rate of hectares to square feet as 10:1,076,391 |
| 1 ft2 | 0.0000093 hectares | The value is rounded to 7 decimal places as a reasonable approximation. The equivalent values define a rate of square feet to hectares as 10,000,000:93. |
The conversion rates lead to two formulae that can be used for manually converting between the two units.
ft^2 = ha * 107,639.1
ha = ft^2 * 0.0000093
The application of the two formulae is demonstrated in the examples below.
EXAMPLE 1: A small town has an area of 800 ha. What is the area of this town in square feet, rounded to the nearest whole number?
Since hectares are our input unit, the first formula is the wisest choice, where we can substitute 800 instead of ha and solve as follows.
ft^2 = ha * 107,639.1 \\= 800 * 107,639.1 \\= 86,111,280 ~ft^2.
Our result does not have a decimal part, hence further rounding is not required.
EXAMPLE 2: Toby has a field with an area of 12,500 ft2. His brother has a field with an area of 0.025 ha. Who has a larger field and by how many ha?
Since the comparison of the result will be in ha, it is wiser to convert the area expressed in ft2 into ha. The second formula would be suitable for that, as it has ft2 as the subject.
ha = ft^2 * 0.0000093 \\= 12,500 * 0.0000093 \\= 0.11625 ~ha.
Toby’s brother has a larger field. The difference is 0.11625 – 0.025 = 0.09125 ha.
What is a Hectare?
The unit itself was formally established in 1817, from the French word hectare, which means a hundred ‘ares’. An are is a unit of area that is commonly used in Europe.
The Greek word ‘hekaton’, meaning a hundred, mixed with the Latin word ‘are’ meaning “an empty piece of land” are the bases of the word’s etymology.
The unit itself is defined as an area of 10,000 meters and is often used to describe large stretches of land, hence you will encounter it when referring to areas of villages and towns, or when buying larger properties such as fields or farmsteads.
Areas in Hectares
The table below will demonstrate some real-life areas, their measures in common units, and then their conversions into hectares. The table can give you a better sense of understanding just how large a hectare is.
| EXAMPLE | AREA | AREA IN HECTARES |
|---|---|---|
| Area of The USA | 3,797,000 miles2 | 984,400,000 ha |
| Area of an average studio apartment in Canada | 460 ft2 | 0.0043 ha |
| Area of an average farmstead in Europe | 350,000 m2 | 35 ha |
| Area of an average Walmart supercenter | 180,000 ft2 | 1.67 ha |
| Area of the Vatican | 0.44 km2 | 44 ha |
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hectare
https://www.etymonline.com/word/hectare
https://rentals.ca/blog/rentals-ca-february-2019-rent-report
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Agriculture_statistics_-_family_farming_in_the_EU
https://biosidmartin.com/how-many-parking-spaces-are-in-a-walmart-parking-lot/