Acre to Square Foot
Convert acre (ac) to square foot (ft²) instantly. Ideal for land, flooring and real-estate sizing.
Acre → Square Foot
43560
ft²
1 ac = 43560 ft²
Frequently asked questions
Exactly 43,560 square feet. The number comes from medieval ploughing practice: an acre was one chain (22 yards) by one furlong (220 yards), which is 4,840 square yards, and a square yard is 9 square feet.
There is no single answer, and this is the main trap in Indian land conversion. A bigha is roughly 27,000 sq ft in parts of Uttar Pradesh, about 14,400 sq ft in West Bengal, and different again in Rajasthan, Bihar, Haryana and Punjab. Any bigha conversion must specify the state, and for a transaction the local definition should be confirmed in writing.
Both are fractions of an acre used regionally. A guntha is one fortieth of an acre, or 1,089 sq ft, common in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat. A cent is one hundredth of an acre, or 435.6 sq ft, used in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. A ground, used in Chennai, is 2,400 sq ft.
An acre is 43,560 square feet
An acre converts to exactly 43,560 square feet, a number that looks arbitrary and is the product of medieval English ploughing practice.
Square feet = acres × 43,560
The derivation: an acre was defined as one chain (22 yards) by one furlong (220 yards) — the area a team of oxen could plough in a day. That is 4,840 square yards, and since a square yard is 9 square feet, 4,840 × 9 = 43,560.
Where acres are used in India
The acre remains the working unit of agricultural land across most of India, and appears throughout land records, revenue documents and rural property transactions.
It sits alongside a set of traditional units that vary by state and are still in active use:
Guntha — 1/40 of an acre, 1,089 sq ft. Common in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat.
Bigha — highly variable, and this is the trap. A bigha is roughly 27,000 sq ft in parts of Uttar Pradesh, about 14,400 sq ft in West Bengal, and different again in Rajasthan, Bihar, Haryana and Punjab. There is no standard bigha, so any conversion must specify the state.
Cent — 1/100 of an acre, 435.6 sq ft. Used in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
Ground — 2,400 sq ft, used in Chennai.
Kanal — 5,445 sq ft, one eighth of an acre, used in Punjab, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir.
Marla — 1/20 of a kanal, about 272 sq ft.
Hectare — the metric unit used in official records, 107,639 sq ft or about 2.471 acres.
Common values
- 0.25 acre = 10,890 sq ft
- 0.5 acre = 21,780 sq ft
- 1 acre = 43,560 sq ft
- 2 acres = 87,120 sq ft
- 5 acres = 217,800 sq ft
- 10 acres = 435,600 sq ft
Why this conversion matters in a transaction
Indian land documents frequently describe the same parcel in different units across different papers — acres in the revenue record, square feet in the sale agreement, square metres in the approved plan, and a traditional local unit in the seller's description.
Reconciling them is not optional. A discrepancy between the area in the sale deed and the area in the revenue record is one of the more common title problems, and it surfaces at the point of resale or when raising a loan against the property.
Where a traditional unit is involved, confirm the local definition in writing rather than relying on a general conversion — particularly for bigha, where the variation between districts is large enough to change a transaction materially.
Square feet is an area, not a length
Worth stating because the error is common. An acre is not 43,560 feet long. It is an area, and it can be any shape — a square acre is about 208.7 feet on each side, but a long narrow strip of the same area is equally an acre.
For a rectangular plot, area in square feet is simply length × width in feet. A 60 by 40 plot is 2,400 sq ft, which is 0.055 acres.