# Exactly how large is an acre of land?



## Lavender (Jun 23, 2012)

I was wondering how big an acre of land is?
I have a large collection of fields that play an important role in the last part of my novel and I am interested to know this so I can describe the fields as being so many acres.

Also, how far is a league? e.g. "seven leagues away from the town..."

Thanks guys.


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## Lawfire (Jun 23, 2012)

One (1) acre equals 4,840 square yards or 43,560 square feet. It is slightly bigger than a square with 208 feet per side. Forty (40) acres (a common size piece of land in Michigan anyway) makes up a square that is 1/4 mile per side. Six hundred-forty (640) acres make up a square mile. As far as metric units...one would have to do the math.

Originally, a league was the distance a person could walk in an hour. As far as I know, it had many values and that is why it is no longer used.


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## Ravana (Jun 24, 2012)

A league is generally considered to be roughly three miles–this is what most modern writers will mean when using it–but, as mentioned, it has seen so many variants that you need to know the context it is being used in. For that matter, you also need to know how long the mile in question is. 

An acre is as given–for most uses: again, there are variants. For an interesting take on _why_ it is that amount–as well as on some other older-style measurements: 

1 acre equals:

4,840 square yards
1⁄640 square mile
10 square chains (1 chain = 66 feet = 22 yards = 4 rods = 100 links)
160 [square] perches. A [linear] perch is the same as a rod (16.5 feet)
1 chain by a furlong (a furlong is 10 chains)
4 roods (a rood being a rod by a furlong)

Note that every single one of the above measures is also subject to variations of place and time: those are just the equivalences the English standardized them at, so are the ones most likely to be encountered. There are a great many other possibilities… though land was rarely measured in fathoms, ells, spans or hands, and never–to the best of my knowledge–in nautical miles, nor, even by the geekiest of geeks, in picas. (A pica being 1/6 inch, this makes an acre 225,815,040 square picas. Which I probably shouldn't have calculated, given my previous sentence. My defense is that I didn't actually try measuring any land that way.  ) At least if you know an acre was 10 square _somethings_, it makes more sense than the rather arbitrary relation to feet, yards, or miles. 

By comparison, Imperial Roman measurements might not even be close to these: we know, for instance, that a Roman mile was 5,000 Roman feet, but we don't know exactly how long a foot was, though all modern estimates put it at marginally less than the foot we use today. (The value is usually around 0.97 modern feet.) Since the modern mile is 5,280 feet, this makes the Roman mile significantly shorter. The Roman league was–did you guess 15,000 feet? That would make sense, given modern values, but in fact you'd be way off: it was actually 7,500 feet, or 1.5 miles.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jun 24, 2012)

The way I memorized the area of an acre (43,560 ftÂ²) is that it's 99% of 44,000. (44000 * 0.99 = 43560)


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## ThinkerX (Jun 24, 2012)

My parents homestead here in the frequently frozen north was 160 acres - a standard size for the time. They lost one part of it right off because it was underwater, and the state took another part for a highway right-of-way, effectively splitting it in two.


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## Eeirail (Jun 24, 2012)

4046.8564224 square meters [640 square miles] to be exact for the acres

There are lots of different answers on how long a league is. It depends on what type of measurement you are trying to compare a league to. For instance, if you want to know how many miles a league equals, the answer would be 3 miles. If you would like to know how many kilometers a league equals, it is 4.83 kilometers. In nautical terms, one league is equal to 2.61 sea miles.
Hope that explains it enough.


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## Butterfly (Jun 24, 2012)

Eeirail said:


> 4046.8564224 square meters [640 square miles] to be exact for the acres



Are you sure? I thought it's more like 640 sq feet.


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## grahamguitarman (Jun 24, 2012)

Butterfly said:


> Are you sure? I thought it's more like 640 sq feet.



LOL I agree, 640 square miles is more like a county than an acre


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## Butterfly (Jun 24, 2012)

Typically, it seems that a football (soccer) pitch is about 1 and 1/2 acres.


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## Devor (Jun 24, 2012)

For a better impression, a home and a yard in American suburbia runs about a quarter acre, and I believe the measurement has something to do with how much a team of oxen could plow in a day.

I think it's important to note that there's no _shape_ involved with acres.  It doesn't matter how long and skinny the property is, or how many corners, it's the surface area that we count in acres.


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## Lawfire (Jun 24, 2012)

Eeirail said:


> 4046.8564224 square meters [640 square miles] to be exact for the acres



I think you may have your numbers may be backwards, Eeirail. There are 640 acres in one square mile.

I recently read that an American Football field is approximately one acre, if you do not count the end zones.


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## Ravana (Jun 25, 2012)

Devor said:


> For a better impression, a home and a yard in American suburbia runs about a quarter acre, and I believe the measurement has something to do with how much a team of oxen could plow in a day.
> 
> I think it's important to note that there's no _shape_ involved with acres.  It doesn't matter how long and skinny the property is, or how many corners, it's the surface area that we count in acres.



Correct. I was just providing the measurements used to define it–which would not have been too uncommon, in large parcels of flat land, as individual plots were often long and narrow… among other reasons, because they're more practical to plow if you don't have to turn corners as often. Of course, that only really applies if you're looking at single-acre plots: I imagine most would prefer ten acres side-by-side over having them end-to-end. ("Twenty-two yards by a mile and a quarter? Can, uhm, can Bob and I swap halves of our tract, an' it please ye, milord?"  )

I've seen the claim on the acre and plowing before, too. It may well be true–in which case, the linear measurements were likely derived from it rather than the converse–though any number of factors could render this more theoretical than practical: soil consistency and rockiness, weather, condition from the prior year (what, if anything, was planted) and so on… the age and condition of the ox, for that matter. As witness the term "oxgang" being "land tillable by one ox in one plowing season"… which is said to have "averaged" 20 acres, but which is also said to have been "typically around" 15. Pick one. I don't have the wherewithal to check primary sources at the moment. I may get back to you.

None of which means much to someone who doesn't own an ox, of course. Nor does it have to, so long as it meant something to whoever came up with the measures.

-

[The rest of this is largely tangential–to just about everything–but I found the digression difficult to resist, as it eventually wends its way into one of my great passions. You'll be able to spot it when it arrives.]

The American football field is 300 feet long by 160 wide without end zones, 360 x 160 with them, so it comes out to 48,000 square feet or 57,600 square feet: a bit over 1.1 acres or a bit under an acre and a third, depending on which way you're looking at it.

What Americans call soccer and the rest of the planet calls association football is played on a field of between 110 and 120 yards long and between 70 and 80 yards wide, giving an area of 7,700 to 9,600 square yards (69,300 to 86,400 square feet). This comes out to a minimum size of just under 1.6 acres… so Butterfly was close enough.

Australian football is generally played on cricket grounds, which vary in dimensions, but which come in at between 150 and 180 yards long by, if I'm reading it correctly, at least 130 yards wide… albeit configured as an oval (nor are all the ovals identical in ellipticality), so it isn't quite the 19,500+ square yards (175,500+ square feet) a rectangular field would be. This is, however, the _minimum_ size–for cricket. For footy itself, the minimum dimensions are 150 meters by 135 meters. Yes, meters, not yards. Yes, 150 by 135. Yes, "minimum." They're allowed to be larger. The field is bloody _huge_… so big that the maximum 18 players per side allowed on the field at one time are dwarfed. Yes, "maximum." You don't think they're gonna stop a game just because someone's hurt, do you? And in point of fact, they generally don't: unless someone has a limb or head off, usually the team doctor just runs out onto the field to check on the bloke… any drama queen who rolled around on the field after being tripped like they do in soccer would be laughed off the field by the other players, jeered off by the crowd, and thrown off by the ref. Even the water boys are on the field a great deal of the time during play.

Oh: the game is also played in four 20-minute quarters… plus any time added if they do, for some reason, actually stop the game. A bit shorter than soccer, a bit longer than American football. They also allow four player substitutions during the course of the game, rather than the three soccer permits. Considering the pace is more similar to that of a basketball game than to either of those, that the field is twice the size of the larger of the two, that like the predecessor of all three–rugby–it is full contact, and that _unlike_ American football, rugby or even soccer the only protective gear players are even _permitted_ is a mouthpiece, I can honestly say that footy players make just about any other professional athletes look wimpy by comparison. 

Did I mention that the only acceptable ways to advance the ball are by drop-kicking, "handballing" (volleying), or running–the last of these requiring bouncing the ball off the ground and back into your hands every few steps?

Did I mention that, like the field, the ball is _also_ oval?

After years of watching this sport, I finally concluded that, contrary to all appearances, it does indeed have "rules," as its name implies. (Prior to which I led of a campaign to have it renamed "Australian Guidelines Football." Or, failing that, "Calvinball.") At least three. Two of which involve scoring. The third is that you can't tackle someone by his hair. 

Okay, maybe I exaggerate a bit. I didn't _really_ lead any campaigns to rename the game. 

I'm also not 100% certain about there being a third rule, either. 

But, _man_, is it ever _fun_ to watch.

Only in Oz.


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## John McDonell (Jun 26, 2012)

In metric hectares (ha)are used instead of acres.  1 hectare is 2.47105 acres or 2.5 depending on how precise you want to be.  If you are converting things roughly you can compare meters and yards. ( 1 yard = 3 feet.     1 foot =0.3048 metres....so 1 Yard = 0.9144 metres) Your archer may make a shot at 125 yards or 114.3 metres.  Close but not exact.
A hectare is 10000 square meters (100m x 100m or any shape consisting ov 10000 square meters)  If you want to get a visual idea of land size, pace off about 110 steps, assuming you have an average size and that will be close enough to 100 meters.  Picture that distance squared and you have about 1 ha or 2.5 acres.


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## SeverinR (Jun 26, 2012)

I never liked the acre as a measurment.
Now being able to picture an acre as alittle less then a football field might help.


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## JonSnow (Jun 26, 2012)

I was wondering about the "league" distance, as well. As it seems to be a common measurement for marching/walking. I had heard variations from 2 miles to 10 miles... but I like the explanation someone had earlier, of it being "the distance a person can walk in an hour". Obviously, that varies... but it would also narrow it down to something like 3-5 miles on average. Maybe slower if it is a marching army...and can speed up or slow down based on the terrain.


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## Telcontar (Jun 26, 2012)

Remember that 'league' is also used as metric of time-to-target, not actual physical distance. As in, a league over rough terrain is physically shorter than a league over flat grassland, but in each case they take the same amount of _time_ to travel (as said several times, one hour was the usual).

As mentioned above, many modern writers simply use the league = 3 miles equivalent. 4 or 5 kilometers is another measurement I see a lot.


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## grahamguitarman (Jun 26, 2012)

Ravana said:


> What Americans call soccer and the rest of the planet calls association football



Actually most Brits call it soccer too.  Australian football is ace BTW, craziest football game ever from what I've seen.


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