Square Meters and Acres Converter

Using the Square Meters and Acres Converter

This converter allows for conversion between two units of area, the metric square meter, and the imperial acre. 

First, choose the preferred spelling of the word meter. You can choose the American spelling (meter), or the British spelling (metre).

Next, choose between square meters ($m^2$) and acres (ac) as your input unit in the ‘CONVERT FROM’ section. The same choice appears in the ‘CONVERT TO’ section, where you are choosing your output unit. 

The alternative way to set the units is to accept the default settings or to swap them by clicking on the icon with the two arrows headed in opposite directions. 

Once you have set all of the input and output units to your liking, type in the value of your input unit as a decimal number into the ‘VALUE TO CONVERT’ section. 

The last step involves choosing the desired number of decimal places you want your result rounded towards and then clicking on ‘CONVERT’.

Your result will appear below the converter, rounded to the desired number of decimal places, alongside the conversion rate between the input and the output unit and a convenient ‘COPY’ icon that allows you to copy and then easily paste your result elsewhere if needed. 

Converting Square Meters and Acres Manually

The manual conversion between these two units depends on their conversion rates. These rates are defined with decimal numbers, as the conversion between metric and imperial units is rarely neat. Hence, our rates will be rounded to a reasonable number of decimal places. For more accurate conversions, use the converter above.

1. A square meter is equivalent to approximately 0.00025 acres. This makes for a conversion rate of 1:0.00025 or 100,000:25, which simplifies to 4,000:1. 
2. An acre is equivalent to approximately 4,047 square meters. This makes for a conversion rate of 1:4,047. 

The conversion rates help us create the following formulae.

Let’s have a look at two examples that demonstrate the usage of these formulae in practice. 

EXAMPLE 1: A farm covers an area of 12,430 $m^2$. How many acres, rounded to one decimal place, is the area of this farm equal to?

Since our input is in $m^2$ and output is in acres, we will be using the first formula, as having the output as the subject of the formula makes all the calculations much easier. We substitute 12,430 for $m^2$ and count as follows.

EXAMPLE 2: Express the area of a 30-acre farm in $m^2$.

For this problem, the second formula would be suitable. We substitute 30 for ac and calculate as follows.

How Large is an Acre?

In order to better comprehend how large an acre is, here are some approximate statements that can help us build a better picture by referencing familiar areas from everyday life:

• An acre is approximately equivalent to 3/4 of a football field.
• An acre is equivalent to the area of about 18 suburban houses.
• An acre is equivalent to approximately 700,000 post-it notes. 
• The whole of the USA consists of 2,400,000,000 acres. 

Resources:

https://rethority.com/how-big-is-an-acre/