Acres to Virgates (ac to virgate)
1 acre equals 0.03333333333 virgates (rounded).
How to convert acres to virgates
To convert acres to virgates, multiply the number of acres by 0.03333333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply virgates by 30.
virgates = acres × 0.03333333333
Example: 10 acres = 0.3333333333 virgates.
Approximate value. Standards for the virgate varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.
About these units
Acre (ac)
43,560 square feet or exactly 4,046.8564224 m², about 40% of a hectare. Originally the area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day.
Ploughland gave the acre its name: it traces to Old Norse akr, meaning cultivated land, and is related to German Acker and Latin ager. In medieval England it was a farming measure, the land one man with a team of eight oxen could plough in a day. The traditional strip was 40 perches long and 4 perches wide, which is 660 by 66 feet, or ten square chains. The shape was never the point, and the article on the unit stresses that any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre.
An acre is 43,560 square feet, 4,840 square yards or 1/640 of a square mile, close to 0.4 hectare. For Americans, it is roughly 88 by 55 yards, about 90 percent of a football field without the end zones. The Weights and Measures Act 1878 fixed it at 4,840 square yards in Britain, where trade use ended in 1995. The 1959 international acre is exactly 4,046.8564224 m²; the US survey acre, about 4,046.872 m², differed slightly, and US survey units were retired after 2022.
1 acre = 4,046.856422 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Acre; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors
Virgate (virgate)
About 30 acres, a quarter of a hide. The typical peasant holding in medieval England; notionally 30 acres but seldom exactly.
Medieval peasants in much of England held land by the yardland, from the Old English gyrd landes. After yard came to mean three feet, scholars coined the Latin-style term virgate to keep the two senses apart. It was the plot that a team of two oxen could plough in a year.
As a fraction of the hide it was usually a quarter, notionally but seldom exactly 30 acres, so it was chiefly a tax assessment and not a surveyed area. In the Danelaw it equalled two oxgangs, and four virgates made a carucate. Some regions split it further into four nooks, with a nook sometimes divided again into a farundel.
The figure used here is 30 acres, about 121,400 square meters, a convenient benchmark. Real holdings ranged widely, and a virgate-holder was a typical villager, farming a share of the open fields in strips.
1 virgate = 121,405.6927 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Virgate; Wikipedia: Hide (unit); Domesday Book Online: Glossary
Related conversions
- Virgates to acres (reverse)
- Acres to square meters
- Acres to square kilometers
- Acres to hectares
- Acres to square inches
- Acres to square feet
- Acres to square yards
- Acres to square miles
- Acres to square centimeters
- Acres to square millimeters
- Acres to tsubo
- Acres to pyeong
- Acres to rai (Thai)
- Square meters to virgates
- Square kilometers to virgates
- Hectares to virgates
- Square inches to virgates
- Square feet to virgates
- Square yards to virgates
- Square miles to virgates
See all area units.