A unit of land area commonly used to measure farmland.
📐
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and United States customary systems, historically defined as the area a yoke of oxen could plough in one day. Its name derives from the Old English æcer, meaning 'open field,' cognate with the Latin ager and Greek agros, both signifying cultivated land. The medieval English acre was standardised as a strip of land one chain (66 feet) wide and one furlong (660 feet) long, equal to 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet. This definition was formalised in statutes from the 13th century onward and carried into the British imperial system. Following the Weights and Measures Act of 1878, the acre was fixed as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres, or roughly 0.4047 hectares. In the United States it remains the most common unit for measuring farmland, ranchland, and large residential plots, while most other countries have adopted the hectare. Regional variants once existed, including the Irish acre (7,840 square yards), the Scottish acre (6,150 square yards), and the Cheshire acre, reflecting local ploughing conventions before standardisation. The acre continues to appear in real estate listings, agricultural subsidies, and land surveys throughout the Anglophone world.
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Leave a comment