Acres to Hectares Converter: US Farm and Ranch Land in Metric Hectares, Reverse Hectares to Acres, Shows Square Feet, Square Meters, and Square Miles

Multiply your acreage by 0.40468564224. That is the exact conversion constant derived from the international definition of the foot (0.3048 m exactly) and the US statutory definition of an acre (43,560 square feet). Example: 10 acres x 0.40468564224 = 4.0468564224 hectares. For practical documentation, round to 4 decimal places: 4.0469 ha. The commonly used approximation of 0.4047 is accurate to 3 decimal places, which is sufficient for most farm program reports. For survey-grade documents, legal land descriptions, or international contracts where the US and metric figures must reconcile precisely, use the full 11-decimal constant.

1 acre = 0.40468564224 hectares exactly. Rounded to common precision levels: 0.4047 ha (4 significant figures), 0.4047 ha (4 decimal places). One acre equals 4,046.8564224 square meters, 43,560 square feet, 0.0015625 square miles, and 0.001562 square kilometers. The acre is a US customary unit that has no clean metric equivalent, which is why the hectare (10,000 m^2) and the acre (43,560 sq ft) do not convert to a simple fraction. For comparison: 5 acres = approximately 2 hectares (actually 2.023 ha). 2.5 acres = approximately 1 hectare (actually 1.012 ha). 1 hectare = approximately 2.47 acres.

1 hectare = 2.4710538147 acres (10 decimal places). The commonly used approximation is 2.471 acres or 2.47 acres. One hectare equals 10,000 square meters, 107,639.1 square feet, 0.01 square kilometers, and approximately 0.003861 square miles. The precise value 2.4710538146716534… is a non-terminating, non-repeating decimal, which reflects the fundamental incommensurability of the metric and US customary land area systems. For USDA FSA program purposes, 1 hectare is typically rounded to 2.47 acres. For international land sales, use the full precision value to ensure metric and US figures reconcile within survey accuracy standards.

An NFL football field including both end zones is 100 yards x 53.33 yards = 5,333 square yards = 48,000 square feet = 1.1023 acres = 0.4459 hectares. The playing field only (excluding end zones, 100 yards x 53.33 yards between the goal lines) is 57,600 square feet = 1.322 acres = 0.535 hectares. When people reference “1 football field” as a land area benchmark, they typically mean the full field including end zones, approximately 1.1 acres (0.45 ha). The chart in this calculator uses 1.32 acres (the full field plus end zones at 360 ft x 160 ft = 57,600 sq ft) as the football field reference, which is the most commonly cited version.

10 acres = 4.0469 hectares (4 decimal places). The exact value is 10 x 0.40468564224 = 4.0468564224 ha. Ten acres is a common benchmark in US land use: the USDA defines a “small farm” as one with less than 50 acres, and many hobby farms, small orchards, and rural homesites fall in the 5 to 15 acre range. In square meters, 10 acres = 40,468.6 m^2 = 4.05 hectares approximately. In square feet: 10 x 43,560 = 435,600 sq ft. Ten acres was also the minimum eligible tract size for some early government homestead programs.

100 acres = 40.4686 hectares (4 decimal places). The exact value is 40.468564224 ha. One hundred acres is a common farm size in the eastern US and a significant commercial orchard or timber tract. In square kilometers: 100 acres = 0.404686 km^2. As a fraction of a square mile: 100/640 = 15.625% of one section. In USDA commodity program terms, a 100-acre tract is significant enough to carry meaningful base acres for ARC and PLC payments under the 2018 Farm Bill. Internationally, 40.47 ha is a medium-sized farm in European standards, where average farm sizes range from 16 ha (EU average) to much larger in Eastern Europe.

640 acres = 258.9988 hectares (4 decimal places). The exact value is 258.99881102… ha. Six hundred forty acres is exactly one square mile, the fundamental unit of the US Public Land Survey System (one section). This is why 640 is the most important number in US land measurement: 640 acres = 1 section = 1 square mile = 4 quarter sections (160 acres each) = 16 forty-acre tracts. The fact that 640 acres is approximately 259 hectares (not a round 250 or 260) illustrates the fundamental incompatibility of the acre and the hectare as units. A township contains 36 sections = 36 x 640 = 23,040 acres = approximately 9,324 hectares.

No. 1 hectare is bigger than 1 acre. One hectare = 2.4711 acres. One acre = 0.4047 hectares. So 1 hectare is about 2.47 times larger than 1 acre. A way to remember this: “hect” means 100 in Greek (as in hectoliter = 100 liters), and 1 hectare = 100 x 100 meters = 10,000 square meters. An acre at 4,046.9 square meters is less than half of a hectare’s 10,000 square meters. In practical terms: a 1-hectare property is a meaningfully larger piece of land than a 1-acre property, about 2.47 times larger. For a typical US suburban neighborhood, 1 hectare could fit approximately 10 standard 0.25-acre residential lots.

0.25 acres = 0.1017 hectares = 1,011.7 square meters = 10,890 square feet. A quarter-acre lot (0.25 ac) is one of the most common residential lot sizes in American suburbs built between the 1950s and 1980s. The actual median lot size for a new single-family home in the US has fallen from about 0.21 acres in 2013 to roughly 0.15 acres (6,500 sq ft) in recent years as urban infill and densification increase. A 0.25-acre lot in metric terms (1,011.7 m^2 = 0.1017 ha) is considered a medium-sized residential lot by international standards: typical European urban lots range from 0.02 to 0.08 ha, while Australian suburban lots often run 0.06 to 0.15 ha.

5 acres = 2.0234 hectares = 20,234.3 square meters = 217,800 square feet. A 5-acre tract is a common rural homesite size, small hobby farm, or market garden plot. In many US rural counties, 5 acres is below the minimum for agricultural zoning and falls into rural residential classification. In agricultural terms, 5 acres can support: a market garden producing vegetables for a small CSA (community-supported agriculture) operation, a small orchard of 50 to 100 fruit trees, a backyard cattle operation with 1 to 2 beef animals, or a horse property with 3 to 5 horses at standard stocking rates. At 2.02 hectares, a 5-acre tract is large enough to qualify for several NRCS cost-share programs that have minimum eligible area requirements in the 0.5 to 1.0 hectare range.

50 acres = 20.2343 hectares = 202,342.8 square meters = 2,178,000 square feet. Fifty acres is a meaningful farm operation size in the eastern US and represents a mid-size parcel in western states. At 20.23 ha, a 50-acre property is large enough to qualify as a farm for USDA program purposes (USDA defines a farm as any operation producing at least $1,000 in agricultural products per year). In carbon markets, 50 acres = 20.23 ha at 1.5 tCO2e/ha/yr = 30.35 tonnes/year of potential sequestration credits. At $20/tonne, that is approximately $607/year in potential carbon revenue, which is meaningful supplemental income for a small farm but typically insufficient to justify carbon program transaction costs without bundling with neighboring landowners.

2 hectares = 4.9421 acres = 20,000 square meters = 215,278 square feet. Two hectares is approximately 5 acres, making it a useful rule of thumb: 2 ha is approximately 5 ac (actually 4.94 ac, close to 5 but not exact). In agricultural practice, 2 hectares is a meaningful plot size for intensive vegetable production, a small orchard, or a market garden. In European agricultural policy (EU Common Agricultural Policy), 2 hectares is below the typical eligibility threshold for many area-based payments (most EU CAP schemes require a minimum of 1 to 5 hectares). In the US context, 4.94 acres at market farmland values of $3,000 to $15,000/acre (depending on region and productivity) would have a land value between $14,820 and $74,100.

The international acre is defined as exactly 43,560 square feet. This traces back to medieval English land measurement: an acre was the area a yoke of oxen could plow in one day, standardized as a strip of land 1 furlong (660 feet) long by 1 chain (66 feet) wide: 660 x 66 = 43,560 square feet. The furlong and chain come from surveying with Gunter’s chain, a 66-foot measuring chain. Since the international foot was defined as exactly 0.3048 meters in 1959 (the international agreement between the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa), the acre has an exact metric equivalent: 1 acre = 43,560 x (0.3048)^2 = 43,560 x 0.09290304 = 4,046.8564224 m^2 = 0.40468564224 ha exactly. There is also a US survey acre based on the old US survey foot (1 ft = 1200/3937 m), which is slightly larger but the difference is negligible for most purposes.

1,000 acres = 404.686 hectares = 4,046,856 square meters = 1.5625 square miles. A 1,000-acre farm is above the USDA 2022 average farm size of 463 acres and represents a large commodity grain, soybean, cotton, or cattle operation in most US regions. In USDA CRP terms, 1,000 enrolled acres = 404.686 ha at potential carbon sequestration rates of 0.5 to 1.5 tCO2e/ha/yr = 202 to 607 tonnes/year. In commercial real estate, a 1,000-acre industrial or logistics campus is considered a major master-planned development (e.g., Amazon, Tesla, and other large logistics facilities have footprints in the 500 to 2,000-acre range). In conservation, 1,000 acres = 404.686 ha qualifies for most land trust programs and conservation easement tax deductions under Internal Revenue Code Section 170(h).

Use the approximation: multiply hectares by 2.47. This gives you the acreage to within 0.01% accuracy for most practical purposes. Examples: 1 ha x 2.47 = 2.47 ac (exact: 2.4711 ac). 10 ha x 2.47 = 24.7 ac (exact: 24.711 ac). 100 ha x 2.47 = 247 ac (exact: 247.105 ac). A more memorable approximation: “a hectare is about two and a half acres.” For the other direction (acres to hectares), the rough approximation is: divide acres by 2.5 (or multiply by 0.4). This gives 100 acres / 2.5 = 40 ha (exact: 40.469 ha), a 1.2% error. The exact constant 0.40468564224 produces less than 0.001% error at any acreage, which is why this calculator uses it rather than the 0.405 or 0.4047 approximations found on most online converters.

5 hectares = 12.3553 acres = 50,000 square meters = 538,195 square feet. Five hectares is approximately 12.4 acres, a useful rule of thumb: 5 ha is roughly 12.5 ac. In European agriculture, 5 hectares is a small farm plot eligible for most EU CAP basic income support payments. In the US, 12.36 acres is a rural homesite, a small beef cattle operation, a medium-size market garden, or a small commercial property development. For NRCS conservation programs, 5 ha (12.36 ac) is large enough for most Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) enrollments, which require a minimum of 1 acre. Land values for 12.36-acre tracts in the US range from less than $10,000/acre in remote rural areas to over $50,000/acre in high-demand agricultural regions like the Corn Belt or California Central Valley.

Central Park in Manhattan is 843 acres = 341.22 hectares = 3,412,155 square meters. The park measures approximately 2.5 miles long and 0.5 miles wide (from 59th Street to 110th Street, and from Fifth Avenue to Central Park West). Converting: 843 acres x 0.40468564224 = 341.15 ha. As a fraction of Manhattan’s total land area: Manhattan is approximately 14,600 acres (5,910 ha), so Central Park represents about 5.8% of Manhattan’s total area. In comparison, New York’s other major parks: Prospect Park in Brooklyn is 585 acres (236.8 ha), Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx is 1,146 acres (463.8 ha), and Pelham Bay Park is 2,772 acres (1,121.8 ha), making it the largest park in New York City.