Hectares to acres
Convert hectares to acres. Multiply by 2.4710538, with tables for farmland, forestry and national park scale.
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The formula
acres = hectares × 2.4710538147The exactness runs the other way: an acre is exactly 4046.8564224 m² and a hectare is exactly 10,000 m², so hectares to acres means dividing by 0.40468564224, which does not terminate. The factor above is that quotient rounded.
To go the other way, multiply by 0.40468564224. See acres to hectares.
Quick reference
| Hectares | Acres |
|---|---|
| 1 ha | 2.471 ac |
| 0.405 ha | 1 ac |
| 5 ha | 12.36 ac |
| 10 ha | 24.71 ac |
| 100 ha | 247.11 ac |
| 259 ha | 640 ac — one square mile |
| 1000 ha | 2471.05 ac |
What a hectare is
A square 100 metres on each side. That definition is the whole appeal of the unit: a hectare is a hundredth of a square kilometre, and a square kilometre is a hundred hectares, with no awkward numbers anywhere. The acre offers no such relationship to the square mile, which contains 640 of them.
| Hectares | Acres | |
|---|---|---|
| Square kilometre | 100 ha | 247.11 ac |
| Square mile | 259.00 ha | 640 ac |
Farmland and forestry
Hectares are the unit of agricultural statistics worldwide, of EU land policy, and of almost every report on deforestation or wildfire:
| Hectares | Acres | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 ha | 2.47 ac | a large allotment site |
| 10 ha | 24.71 ac | a small farm |
| 100 ha | 247.11 ac | a substantial farm |
| 1000 ha | 2471.05 ac | 10 km² |
| 10,000 ha | 24,710.54 ac | 100 km² |
A wildfire reported as burning 50,000 hectares has burnt 123,553 acres, or 500 km², or 193 square miles. All four numbers describe the same fire, and which one a report reaches for says more about its audience than about the fire.
Estimating in your head
Double it and add half again. 10 ha doubled is 20, plus 5 is 25 acres — the true answer is 24.71. Doubling alone runs 19% low, which is too far off to be useful.