Square Meters and Hectares Converter

Using the Square Meters and Hectares Converter

This converter allows you to find equivalent values between two metric units of area, square meters, and hectares. 

Below are the steps you can take to use this converter efficiently.

1. Begin by choosing the preferred spelling of the word meter. You can choose between the American spelling (meter) and the British spelling (metre). The options can be chosen at the top of the converter.
2. In the ‘CONVERT FROM’ section, you can choose between square meters ($m^2$) and hectares (ha) as your input unit.
3. In the ‘CONVERT TO’ section, choose between the same two units as the output (result) unit of your conversion.
4. In the ‘VALUE TO CONVERT’ section of the converter, type in the input value as a decimal number.
5. Choose the number of decimal places you want your result rounded toward and click on the ‘CONVERT’ icon.
6. You will receive your result in the output unit of your choice, rounded to your preferred number of decimal places.

The result also comes with the conversion rate between the input and output units, as well as with a convenient ‘COPY’ icon, that allows for easy copying and pasting of your result.

When choosing the input and output values, you can also just go along with the default setting or swap the units by clicking on the icon with 2 arrows headed in opposite directions.

Converting Square Meters and Hectares Manually

Since both of the units belong to the metric system, the conversion rates (which determine all of the formulae we will be using for conversions) will be working with some multiple of 10. This makes manual conversions much easier than between metric and imperial units. 

First, let’s consider the definitions of both units.

A square meter is defined as the area of a square with a side length of 1 meter.

A hectare is determined as 100 ares, as the word ‘hekaton’ (which determines the prefix of the word) means ‘a hundred’ in Greek. We know that an are is equivalent to 100 $m^2$. 

This means that a hectare is equivalent to 10,000 $m^2$, or the area of a square with a side length of 100 m. 

This puts square meters to hectares into a ratio of 1:10,000. Two formulae can be derived from this relationship, one for converting from square meters to hectares and the second one for converting hectares into square meters. 

We can see there are 2 versions of the same equation, one working with 10,000 and one working with 0.0001. Once we realize, that 0.0001 is the inverse value of 10,000 (coming from the fraction 1/10,000), the formulas start to make sense. In our examples, we will always work with the first version of each formula, however, we encourage you to try the other versions as well to see, that you will receive the same result in your conversions anyway. 

EXAMPLE 1: A cornfield has an area of 523,440 $m^2$. How many hectares does this field have?

Our input unit is in square meters, while our output unit is in hectares. This calls for using the first formula, as our output is the subject of it. We substitute 523,440 $m^2$ as our input and calculate as follows.

EXAMPLE 2: How many square meters does a 22.75-hectare property have?

Since our input is in hectares and our desired output is in square meters, we will be using the second formula. We substitute 22.75 as hectares and calculate as follows.

Converting Square Meters and Hectares from Memory

Converting metric units is something we can easily do from memory without the use of a calculator. The reason for this is the conversion rate, which is determined by either multiplication or division by the number 10,000. 

This means, that we can use 2 simple tricks when converting from memory.

• When we need to divide by 10,000 (in our case when we convert from $m^2$ to ha), we move the decimal point 4 positions to the left. If there are not enough digits to fill the 4 moves, we add zeroes to the left side of the number and then a zero in front of the decimal dot. 
• When we need to multiply by 10,000 (in our case when we convert from ha to $m^2$), we move the decimal point 4 positions to the right. If needed, we add zeroes at the end of the number for each position that is not filled with a written down decimal number.

Here are two examples to demonstrate the conversion without the use of the formula.

EXAMPLE 1: Convert 235.8 $m^2$ into hectares.

We are converting $m^2$ to hectares, hence we are dividing by 10,000. We must move the decimal dot 4 positions to the left, but we only have 3 numbers to the left of the decimal dot. Hence, we insert one more zero in front of the number and also put a zero before the decimal dot and end up with 0.02358 hectares. 

EXAMPLE 2: Convert 17.6 hectares into $m^2$.

We are converting hectares into square meters, hence we are multiplying by 10,000. This requires moving the decimal dot 4 spaces to the right. However, we only have 1 number available after the decimal dot. Hence, we fill in the missing spaces with 3 more zeroes and end up with 176,000 $m^2$.

How Big Is a Hectare

In order to gain some perspective on the true size of the hectare, the table below lists the areas of the 5 largest cities (by area) in the USA in hectares.

An interesting thing to notice is the disproportion between area and population in the USA. The largest cities in terms of the population barely make it into the top 10, while the largest cities are all in Alaska, the third least populated state in the USA. The largest city of Sitka has a population of only 8,458 people. This means that the city has almost 1000x fewer inhabitants than the largest city by population in the USA (New York) while having almost 10x the area.

RESOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_area