How many square feet are in an acre?
Quick answer: 1 acre = 43,560 square feet. That is about 4,047 square meters, or 0.405 hectares.
Acres conversion chart
| Acres | Square feet | Square meters | Hectares |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/4 acre | 10,890 | 1,012 | 0.10 |
| 1/2 acre | 21,780 | 2,023 | 0.20 |
| 1 acre | 43,560 | 4,047 | 0.40 |
| 2 acres | 87,120 | 8,094 | 0.81 |
| 5 acres | 217,800 | 20,234 | 2.02 |
| 10 acres | 435,600 | 40,469 | 4.05 |
| 640 acres (1 square mile) | 27,878,400 | 2,589,988 | 259.0 |
How big is an acre?
An acre is an area, not a shape. If it were a square, each side would be about 208.7 feet long. Some comparisons:
- An American football field without the end zones (100 yards by 53 1/3 yards) is about 1.1 acres.
- A typical suburban lot of 1/4 acre is about 10,890 square feet.
- A hectare, the metric unit for land, is about 2.47 acres.
How to convert
Acres to square feet: multiply by 43,560. Square feet to acres: divide by 43,560.
Example: a 15,000 square foot lot is 15,000 / 43,560 = 0.34 acres.
Acres to hectares: multiply by 0.4047. Hectares to acres: multiply by 2.471.
Example: 12 acres is about 4.86 hectares.
Why 43,560?
The number comes from a historical definition. An acre was the area that could be ploughed in a day, later fixed as 1 chain (66 feet) by 1 furlong (660 feet). Multiply 66 by 660 and you get 43,560 square feet. It is still the standard unit in US land records.
Frequently asked questions
How many acres are in a square mile? 640.
How many square yards are in an acre? 4,840.
How many acres is 1,000 square feet? About 0.023 acres.
Is the acre a metric unit? No. It is a US customary and imperial unit. Metric countries use hectares and square meters.
Convert any value with our acres to square feet converter, the acres to hectares converter or the square miles to acres converter. For smaller areas, use the square feet to square meters converter, where 1 square meter is about 10.76 square feet.
For how any conversion factor works, read how unit conversion works.