An Acre is a weird unit of measurement that is used for land only. So just how big is an Acre?
An acre is 43,560 square feet. Acres are a form of measuring area, which means, these 43,560 square feet can appear in any shape. As such a square acre will be about 209 feet per side.
Understanding the size of an acre is important. But throwing more and more words to describe a piece of land isn’t very helpful, so we’ve made some visual comparisons for your use in understanding or explaining the size of an Acre.
Why 43,560 Square Feet?
The reason an Acre ends up measuring such a strange number of square feet is based on the origins of how the Acre came to be. An Acre’s traditional size can be found by multiplying a chain (66 feet) by a furlong (660 feet.)
A chain comes from the length of a surveyor’s chain and a furlong was the length of land that a team of oxen could plow before needing to rest. By combining these two measurements you get an acre or the size field that a team of oxen could plow in a day.
One Acre Compared to a Square Mile
If you were to compare one square acre to one square mile, an acre is significantly less. 1 acre is equivalent to 0.0015625 square miles. Looking at it another way, there are 640 acres in a square mile.
Fun Facts About a Single Acre
- The United States spans over 2.4 billion acres including land and water.
- An acre of land is a nice piece of land for a single family home with a good amount of land for a big yard.
- If you were to live in a standard neighborhood, you could fit about 5 average-sized homes on a single acre.
- Central Park in New York City is about 1.3 square miles or 832 square acres.
- The Amazon Rainforest is about 1,359,079,600 square acres.
One Acre in Measured in the Metric System
For those of you that use the metric system instead of the imperial system, an acre in square meters is 4046.86 Square Meters. In hectares, an acre
Walking the Extra Acre
Of course, all of these measurements of area won’t really help you if you are worried about travel time. How long does it take you to cross your acre of property? I was thinking just that so here is, at a slow walking speed, how long it will take you to cross a square acre.
One Acre in Football Fields
I was always told to picture a football field when I thought of an acre. This, however, is not true an acre is smaller than a football field by quite a bit actually. An acre is .756 football fields long including the end zones. Or there are 1.32 Acres in a Football field. A Soccer field is wider than an American football field and ends up being 1.98 Acres big.
One Acre in Tennis Courts
Maybe your not an American football fan. Well than how about tennis? Here is an image of an acre in tennis courts.
One Acre in Sticky Notes
We can get lost in a sea of measurements. Maybe that doesn’t appeal to you and you need a more everyday example of the measurements of an Acre. Well then here is an acre of sticky notes.
One Acre in Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets
Not everyday enough for? Or maybe you have a little one that you are trying to explain the size on an acre to. Well, in that case, dinosaur chicken nuggets to an acre.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of how big an area of land is.
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