Acre facts for kids

For the state in Brazil, see Acre (state).

An acre is a way to measure land area. It's an old English unit that is still used today in countries like the United States and some Commonwealth countries. People often use acres to talk about the size of farms, parks, or other pieces of land.

An acre is officially defined as 4,046.8564224 square meters. That's about 4,840 square yards. To give you an idea, an acre is roughly the same size as an American football field.

What is an Acre?

An acre is a unit of area. It helps us understand how big a piece of land is. It's part of the Imperial units system, which is used in several countries around the world.

How Big is an Acre?

The official size of an acre is 4,046.8564224 square meters. This is also equal to 4,840 square yards.

Acre in Other Units

• One acre is the area of a rectangle that is one furlong long and one chain wide.
• The international acre is exactly 4,046.8564224 square meters. This is also about 0.404686 hectares. This measurement is based on the international foot, which is 0.3048 meters long.

History of the Acre

The idea of an acre goes back a long time in England. It was first used to describe how much land a farmer could plough in one day using an ox.

Standardizing the Acre

Because the amount of land an ox could plough could change, kings decided to make the acre a fixed size.

• Kings like Edward I, Edward III, and Henry VIII passed laws to set the exact size of an acre.
• Later, George IV also helped make sure the size was consistent.
• After these laws, countries in the Commonwealth, including the United States, also adopted these fixed measurements for the acre. This helped everyone agree on how big an acre really was.

See also

In Spanish: Acre (unidad de superficie) para niños