Hectares to Acres Converter
Land area from hectares to acres — a hectare is just under two and a half acres.
Updated
acres
2.47ac
1 ha = 2.47 ac
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In short
How many acres is one hectare?
One hectare is 2.4710538 acres, which this converter displays as 2.47. Multiply any hectare figure by that number: 10 ha is 24.71 acres, 100 ha — exactly one square kilometre — is 247.11 acres, and 259 ha is one square mile, since a square mile holds 640 acres. Two and a half acres per hectare is the working shortcut.
For large reported areas, square miles are easier to picture than acres: one hectare is 0.00386 square miles.
hectares to acres — quick reference
| hectares (ha) | acres (ac) |
|---|---|
| 0.1 ha | 0.25 ac |
| 0.3 ha | 0.62 ac |
| 0.5 ha | 1.24 ac |
| 1 ha | 2.47 ac |
| 2 ha | 4.94 ac |
| 5 ha | 12.36 ac |
| 10 ha | 24.71 ac |
| 50 ha | 123.55 ac |
The formula, worked line by line
A hectare is exactly 10,000 m², the area of a square 100 m on a side. An acre is 4,840 square yards, and since the international yard has been exactly 0.9144 m since 1959, that is exactly 4,046.8564224 m². Dividing one by the other gives a factor with no approximation in its definition, only in how many decimals you choose to print.
The reciprocal does not terminate — 2.47105381467165 and on — which is why every published acre-per-hectare figure is a rounded one while the hectare-per-acre figure, 0.40468564224, is exact. Dividing by the exact number is therefore slightly better practice than multiplying by a truncated 2.4711, though the difference only shows up on large totals.
acres = hectares ÷ 0.40468564224
= hectares × 2.4710538…
= hectares × 10,000 m² ÷ 4,046.8564224 m²
square miles = hectares ÷ 258.9988- Hectares entered
- 1
- The exact divisor
- 0.40468564224
- Divide
- 1 ÷ 0.40468564224
- Acres
- 2.4710538, displayed as 2.47
One hectare is a shade under two and a half acres. Scale it up and the pattern is clean: 100 ha is 247.1054 acres and is also exactly one square kilometre, 500 ha is 1,235.53 acres, and 10,000 ha is 24,710.54 acres. Push it into the unit that actually communicates and 10,000 ha is 38.6 square miles, because 258.9988 ha make a square mile.
The multiply-by-2.5 shortcut reads 1.17 percent high, since the true factor is 2.4711, and the cost of that little overshoot scales with the size of the parcel.
- On 5 ha
- about 0.15 of an acre, and nobody cares
- On 500 ha
- 1,250 against a true 1,235.53, nearly 15 acres
- On 10,000 ha
- 289 acres invented
The error always points the same way — upward — so it consistently flatters whatever it is applied to, which makes it the wrong direction to be wrong in if you are estimating how much land you are buying or how much has burned.
How to use the hectares to acres converter
Hectares reach US readers through data rather than deeds. Farm and crop statistics, conservation and reserve areas, vineyard and orchard sizes, deforestation totals, and wildfire figures from abroad are all reported in hectares. Enter the metric number and this converter gives you acres, the unit US land is actually bought and sold in; Swap runs it the other way.
The factor is exact rather than approximate, since a hectare is exactly 10,000 m² and an acre is defined as 4,840 square yards, which at the exact 0.9144 m yard makes it exactly 4,046.8564224 m². Dividing one by the other gives 2.47105381 and change, with no measurement uncertainty anywhere in it.
2.47 acres
one hectare
2.4710538, rounded for display
247.11 acres
100 hectares
exactly one square kilometre
259 ha
one square mile
divide hectares by 259
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Start with the anchors. One hectare is 2.47 acres, 10 ha is 24.71 acres, and 100 ha — which is exactly one square kilometre — is 247.11 acres. Going up, 500 ha is 1,235.53 acres and 1,000 ha is 2,471.05 acres.
The single most useful equivalence is that 259 ha is one square mile, because a square mile holds 640 acres and 640 times 0.40468564 is 258.9988. Once you have that, any large metric area converts into a shape you already know: 2,590 ha is ten square miles, 25,900 ha is a hundred, and anything reported as a round number of square kilometres divides by 2.59 to give square miles directly.
The shortcut is to multiply hectares by 2.5, or to halve the number and add double the half, which comes to the same thing. It runs 1.17 percent high: one hectare gives 2.5 acres against a true 2.4711, and 100 ha gives 250 against 247.11. That is fine for reading a news figure, but at 10,000 ha the shortcut has invented 289 acres out of nothing, and the error always points upward, so it flatters whatever you are measuring.
The metric land figures a US reader actually encounters, from a single hectare up to a continental deforestation total, each in acres and again in square miles. The square-mile column is there because it is the unit that makes a six-figure hectare number mean something.
| Landmark or reported figure | Hectares | Acres | Square miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| One acre | 0.4047 | 1 | 0.0016 |
| An American football field, end zones included | 0.5351 | 1.3223 | 0.0021 |
| A football pitch at 105 m × 68 m | 0.7140 | 1.7644 | 0.0028 |
| One hectare (100 m × 100 m) | 1 | 2.4711 | 0.0039 |
| A 20-hectare vineyard | 20 | 49.4211 | 0.0772 |
| A 50-hectare orchard | 50 | 123.5527 | 0.1931 |
| One square kilometre | 100 | 247.1054 | 0.3861 |
| One square mile | 258.9988 | 640 | 1 |
| A 500-hectare estate | 500 | 1,235.53 | 1.9305 |
| A 1,000-hectare farm | 1,000 | 2,471.05 | 3.8610 |
| A 5,000-hectare reserve | 5,000 | 12,355.27 | 19.3051 |
| A 10,000-hectare wildfire | 10,000 | 24,710.54 | 38.6102 |
| A 100,000-hectare wildfire | 100,000 | 247,105.38 | 386.1022 |
| A 1,000,000-hectare deforestation total (10,000 km²) | 1,000,000 | 2,471,053.81 | 3,861.0216 |
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How do you read a headline hectare figure?
It matters most when a headline number is doing the work, because a hectare total in a news report is a figure almost no American reader can size. A wildfire reported at 10,000 hectares has burned 24,711 acres, or about 38.6 square miles. One at 100,000 hectares has covered 386 square miles, which is larger than many US cities.
A 500-hectare estate is 1,236 acres. A 20-hectare vineyard is 49.4 acres, and a 50-hectare orchard is 123.6 acres. For a physical reference at the small end, a hectare is about one and a half football pitches at 105 m by 68 m, or roughly two American football fields including their end zones.
Buildings come in square meters
An estate arrives in hectares but the house on it is listed in square meters, and that figure needs the other area converter.
Open the square meter converter →Every hectares value, worked out
57 common hectares figures each get their own page, with the answer at full precision, the arithmetic, what rounding costs, and the nearest real-world reference point on the scale.
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Questions people ask
How many acres is one hectare?
One hectare is 2.4710538 acres, displayed as 2.47. Working up from there: 0.5 ha is 1.24 acres, 2 ha is 4.94 acres, 5 ha is 12.36 acres, 10 ha is 24.71 acres, 50 ha is 123.55 acres, and 100 ha is 247.11 acres. The reverse direction is worth memorising alongside it, since an acre is 0.4047 hectares. And the shortcut of two and a half acres per hectare runs only 1.17 percent high, which is close enough for reading a figure and too loose for buying land.
How big is a hectare, really?
A hectare is a 100 m by 100 m square: 10,000 m², or 107,639 square feet. The clearest physical comparison is a football pitch — a 105 m by 68 m field is 7,140 m², so a hectare is about one and a half pitches. In US terms it is 2.47 acres, or roughly two American football fields including their end zones, since a field with end zones is 57,600 sq ft against the hectare at 107,639. It is also exactly one hundredth of a square kilometre, which is the relationship that makes it convenient in the first place.
How do I convert a wildfire or deforestation figure in hectares?
Multiply by 2.4711 for acres, or divide by 258.9988 for square miles. A 10,000-hectare fire is 24,711 acres, which is 38.6 square miles. A 100,000-hectare figure is 247,105 acres, or 386 square miles. The square-mile version is usually the more useful one for large areas, because 247,000 acres is just as hard to picture as the hectares it came from. Bear in mind that such figures are often preliminary and get revised, so quoting the converted result to the nearest hundred acres is more honest than to the nearest one.
Is multiplying hectares by 2.5 accurate enough?
For reading a news story yes, for a transaction no. The true factor is 2.4710538, so multiplying by 2.5 runs 1.17 percent high. On 5 ha the shortcut adds about 0.15 of an acre. On 500 ha it gives 1,250 acres against a true 1,235.53, inventing nearly 15 acres, and on 10,000 ha it invents 289. The error always points upward, so it flatters whatever you are measuring — the wrong direction if you are working out how much land a price actually buys, and the wrong direction again for a yield per hectare.
How do hectares relate to square kilometers and square miles?
100 hectares is exactly 1 km², which is 247.11 acres or 0.3861 square miles. Going the other way, one square mile is 640 acres, which is 258.9988 hectares, so call it 259 ha or 2.59 km². That gives you two quick tests for a large metric figure: divide hectares by 100 for square kilometres, or by 259 for square miles. So when a reported land area passes 259 ha you are looking at more than a square mile of ground, and 2,590 ha is ten square miles.
Sources
Where the constants and formulas on this page come from. Each line names the figure it backs.
The acre and the hectare both reduce to exactly defined metric areas, so this factor is exact rather than measured.
NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 — Factors for units listed alphabetically — NIST
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