Square Meters and Square Kilometers Converter

Using the Square Meters and Square Kilometers Converter

This converter allows you to convert between 2 very common units of area in the metric system, the square meters and the square kilometers.

Start off by choosing between the British and the American spelling of the word meter, which is spelled ‘metre’ in the British version. This will also affect how the word kilometer is spelled, as ‘meter’ is a part of the word.

Next, choose your input unit in the ‘CONVERT FROM’ section out of the two options, square kilometers (km²) and square meters (m²).

Choosing your output unit takes place in the ‘CONVERT TO’ section and the choice is the same as in the input selection.

An alternative way to select the input and output units is to just accept the default options or to swap their order by clicking on the icon with the 2 arrows headed in opposite directions.

Once your units are selected, type in the value of your input as a decimal number, using the decimal dot, into the ‘VALUE TO CONVERT’ section of the converter.

Follow up by choosing the number of decimal places you want your result rounded toward and click on ‘CONVERT’.

Your result will appear below the converter as a decimal number in the output unit of your choice. A conversion rate between your input and output units will be included alongside a convenient ‘COPY’ icon that allows you to copy the result and paste it into another piece of writing.

Converting Square Meters and Square Kilometers Manually

To convert between square meters and square kilometers, a conversion rate needs to be established first. Since both units belong to the metric system, their conversion rate will be defined by a multiple of 10, which makes manual conversions accurate and fairly easy to solve.

Let’s start by defining each unit in terms of units of length.

A square meter is equivalent in area to a square with a side length of 1 meter, making its area equal to 1 x 1 = 1 m².

A square kilometer is equivalent in area to a square with a side length of 1 kilometer. A kilometer is equivalent to 1,000 meters, hence expressing a square kilometer in square meters means expressing a square kilometer as 1,000 x 1,000 = 1,000,000 m².

This makes the conversion rate between km² and m² equal to 1:1,000,000.

We can derive 2 formulae from this conversion rate, one for converting square kilometers into square meters, and the other one for the reverse order of conversion.

m^2 = km^2*1,000,000

km^2 = m^2\div1,000,000

We define 2 formulae for easier calculations. Choosing the right one is a matter of considering what is your input and what is your output unit. For example, if the output is in square meters, a suitable formula will have the square meters as the subject (hence the first formula).

The following 2 examples will demonstrate how these formulae are used in practice.

EXAMPLE 1: How many square meters does a village with an area of 4.223 km² have?

Our output is in square meters, while our input is in square kilometers. The first formula is suitable for solving this problem quickly, by substituting 4.233 for km².

m^2 = km^2*1,000,000 \\= 4.223*1,000,000 \\= 4,223,000 ~m^2.

EXAMPLE 2: A landing strip has an area of 353,389 m². What is the area of this landing strip expressed in square kilometers, rounded to 2 decimal places?

Since our output is in square kilometers, we will be using the second formula, where we just substitute 353,389 for square meters.

km^2 = m^2\div1,000,000 \\= 353,389\div1,000,000 \\= 0.353389 km^2.

We must round the result to 2 decimal places, hence the solution is 0.35 km².

Converting Square Meters and Kilometers From Memory

Converting between metric units of area from memory is fairly easy, as multiplication or division by 1,000,000 is a question of moving the decimal point without adjusting the digits of the number.

Multiplying by 1,000,000 requires us to move the decimal point 6 decimal places to the right while filling any places with no available digits with zeroes.

Dividing by 1,000,000 requires us to move the decimal point 6 decimal places to the left while filling any places with no available digits with zeroes. In case we do not have a digit to take the place of the final value before the decimal point, we write in another zero.

EXAMPLE 1: Convert  543.4 m² into km².

We have to move the decimal dot 6 places to the left, with only 3 available digits. Hence we fill the 3 slots with zeroes and do not forget to put a zero before the decimal dot. This makes the result equal to 0.0005434 km².

EXAMPLE 2: Convert 21.34 km² into m².

We have to move the decimal dot 6 places to the right, with only 2 available digits. We solve the issue by filling the 4 extra places with zeroes, leading to the result of 21,340,000 m².

Areas of Continents

The square kilometer is the largest commonly used unit of area in the metric system. For that very reason, it is the unit in which we express large stretches of area, as are those of cities, countries, or continents. The table below offers the areas of all the continents expressed in km².

Resources

https://www.worldometers.info/geography/7-continents/