Square metre
SI-derived unit of area
The square metre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square meter (American spelling) is the unit of area in the International System of Units (SI) with symbol m2. It is the area of a square with sides one metre in length.
Adding and subtracting SI prefixes creates multiples and submultiples; however, as the unit is exponentiated, the quantities grow exponentially by the corresponding power of 10. For example, 1 kilometre is 103 (one thousand) times the length of 1 metre, but 1 square kilometre is (103)2 (106, one million) times the area of 1 square metre, and 1 cubic kilometre is (103)3 (109, one billion) cubic metres.
Its inverse is the reciprocal square metre (m−2), often called "per square metre".
01SI prefixes applied
The square metre may be used with all SI prefixes used with the metre.
| Multiplication | Name | Symbol | Multiplication | Name | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | square metre (centiare) | m2 | 100 | square metre (centiare) | m2 |
| 102 | square decametre (are) | dam2 | 10−2 | square decimetre | dm2 |
| 103 | kilo square metre | k(m2) | 10−3 | milli square metre | m(m2) |
| 104 | square hectometre (hectare) | hm2 | 10−4 | square centimetre | cm2 |
| 106 | square kilometre | km2 | 10−6 | square millimetre | mm2 |
| 1012 | square megametre | Mm2 | 10−12 | square micrometre | μm2 |
| 1018 | square gigametre | Gm2 | 10−18 | square nanometre | nm2 |
| 1024 | square terametre | Tm2 | 10−24 | square picometre | pm2 |
| 1030 | square petametre | Pm2 | 10−30 | square femtometre | fm2 |
| 1036 | square exametre | Em2 | 10−36 | square attometre | am2 |
| 1042 | square zettametre | Zm2 | 10−42 | square zeptometre | zm2 |
| 1048 | square yottametre | Ym2 | 10−48 | square yoctometre | ym2 |
| 1054 | square ronnametre | Rm2 | 10−54 | square rontometre | rm2 |
| 1060 | square quettametre | Qm2 | 10−60 | square quectometre | qm2 |
02Unicode characters
Unicode has several characters used to represent metric area units, but these are for compatibility with East Asian character encodings and are not meant to be used in new documents.
- U+33A1 ㎡ SQUARE M SQUARED
- U+33A2 ㎢ SQUARE KM SQUARED
- U+3378 ㍸ SQUARE DM SQUARED
- U+33A0 ㎠ SQUARE CM SQUARED
- U+339F ㎟ SQUARE MM SQUARED
Instead, the Unicode superscript U+00B2 ² SUPERSCRIPT TWO can be used, as in m².
03Conversions
One square metre is equal to:
- 0.000001 square kilometre (km2)
- 10000 square centimetres (cm2)
- 0.0001 hectares (ha)
- 0.001 decares (daa)
- 0.01 ares (a)
- 0.1 deciares (da)
- 1 centiare (ca)
- 0.000247105381 acres (ac)
- 0.0247105381 cents
- 1.195990 square yards (sq yd)
- 10.763911 square feet (ft2)
- 1550.0031 square inches (in2)
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Square metre”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Mètre carré.png by Adrien Coffinet, dit SenseiAC, CC0
- Comparison land area units.svg by Cmglee, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Square Meter Unit Conversion Visual Aid.svg by BloomyFractal, CC BY-SA 4.0
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