Acre

acre
One hectare, with an acre represented as the lower white-and-yellow checkered region
General information
Unit system	US customary units, Imperial units
Unit of	area
Symbol	ac, acre
Conversions
1 ac in ...	... is equal to ...
SI units	= 4,046.8564224 m2
US customary, Imperial	≡ 4,840 sq yd ≡ 1⁄640 sq mi

The acre (/ˈeɪkər/ AY-kər) is a unit of land area used in the British imperial and the United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, 1⁄640 of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m², or about 40% of a hectare. Based upon the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The acre is sometimes abbreviated ac^[1] but is usually spelled out as the word "acre".^[2]

Traditionally, in the Middle Ages, an acre was conceived of as the area of land that could be ploughed by one man using a team of eight oxen in one day.^[3]

The acre is still a statutory measure in the United States. Both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but they differ by only four parts per million (see below). The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.

The acre is used in many established and former Commonwealth of Nations countries by custom. In a few, it continues as a statute measure, although not since 2010 in the UK, and not for decades in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In many places where it is not a statute measure, it is still lawful to "use for trade" if given as supplementary information and is not used for land registration.