How to Convert Square Feet to Acres for Land

Do you need to convert square feet to acres? Here’s a tool to help you make the square feet to acres conversion quickly and easily (just scroll down to the orange button if you’re in a big hurry), plus we’ve included some other related information that you may find interesting.

Square Feet to Acres Conversion

The more your work in real estate the more you see that each state or local market has a different way of doing things. One of those differences is the unit of measurement that is most commonly used in each market for describing the area of a lot or parcel of land.

In the United States most people typically refer to land area in either square feet (ft²) or acres. Despite that, you still may find that some places use entirely different units of measurement for surveys and land, and you even may see that both square feet and acres are used in the same local market too (for example, square feet for smaller parcels and acres for larger parcels).

It’s not that either is right or wrong, but it helps to understand how to convert square feet to acres (or convert acres to square feet) — whether you are buying, selling or just owning land. And while a surveyor typically is the source of the original measurements, the good news is that you don’t have to be a surveyor to convert between square feet and acres.

In fact, we have an easy-to-use square feet conversion calculator available on LotNetwork.com so you can quickly determine the size of your land in acres when you have the square feet value. For system-wide consistency we use Acres as the baseline unit of measurement for area on LotNetwork.com for describing lots and land (in listings, searches, etc.), so you can use this simple tool to convert your square feet to acres in a flash. The conversion calculator is conveniently displayed at the bottom of each of our Resources pages, like:

You can go do your conversion now if you wish, but we also will provide a little background about the calculations in the square feet conversion tool.

43,560 square feet = 1 acre

The math is straight-forward for converting square feet to acres — just divide your property’s square footage area measurement by 43,560. The result is the land area in acres.

For example, if you have a 17,200 sf lot and need to know the acreage:

17,200 sf / 43,560 = .39 acres

As noted above, our conversion tool is focused on helping you convert square feet to acres (not converting acres to square feet) because we use Acres as the primary unit of measurement for the area or size of lots and land on LotNetwork.com. Here’s what this calculation looks like on the LotNetwork.com square feet to acres conversion tool:

Tool to help you convert square feet to acres

LotNetwork offers this SF to Acre Conversion Tool and Other Calculators

Need to convert Acres to Square Feet?

And converting acres to square feet is mathematically just the opposite. Multiply your property’s acre measurement by 43,560. The result is the land size in square feet.

For example, if you have a .75 acre lot and need to know the square footage:

.75 acres x 43,560 = 32,670 ft²

What is an Acre anyway?

A little history and backstory on the origin of the word “Acre”. The term acre goes back to the Middle Ages and is derived from farming — it essentially means the amount of land that can be plowed by a yoke of oxen in one day.

Farming Origins of Acre - Public Domain Source - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthropic_Farm_Units.png - Ploughmen_Fac_simile_of_a_Miniature_in_a_very_ancient_Anglo_Saxon_Manuscript_published_by_Shaw_with_legend_God_Spede_ye_Plough_and_send_us_Korne_enow.png: Paul Lacroix [Public domain]

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthropic_Farm_Units.png [Public Domain]

The measurement of an “acre” historically varied based on local customs and measurements, but today an acre is uniformly equivalent to:

66 feet × 660 feet (43,560 square feet)
10 square chains (1 chain = 66 feet = 22 yards = 4 rods = 100 links)
Approximately 208.71 feet × 208.71 feet (a square)
4,840 square yards
43,560 square feet
160 perches (A perch is equal to a square rod (1 square rod is 0.00625 acre))
4 roods
A furlong by a chain (furlong 220 yards, chain 22 yards)
40 rods by 4 rods = 160 rods²
¹⁄₆₄₀ (0.0015625) square mile (1 square mile is equal to 640 acres)

A good way to visualize an acre is to think of a 100 yard American Football field. An acre is the area that is approximately the width and 90.75% of the length of the field (excluding endzones). So you can take about 10 yards off the length of the in-bounds playing area of a football field to get a quick visual estimate of an acre.

Use a Football Field to estimate an Acre

Use a football field to help you visualize the size of an acre

Here’s another nice visual that uses a football field — plus some other comparisons — to demonstrate the size of an acre.

What equals an acre? Infographic by Washington Grown (Source: http://www.wagrown.com/what-does-an-acre-look-like/)

Related Resources:

Real estate pros, be sure to see our Real Estate Agent and Broker Resources to see how LotNetwork.com can help you sell your lot and land listings. And homebuilding and development pros can go to the Homebuilder and Developer Resources Page to find out about our features and powerful online tools that were created to meet your needs, and will help you buy and sell lots and land so you can sell new homes.

Check out our other resource pages for tips and information on the following topics:

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