Dunam

Middle EasternTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Exactly 1,000 m² in the modern metric standard. Older Ottoman dunams varied by region, from about 900 to 2,500 m².

1 dunam = 1,000 square meters (exactly).

About the dunam

Ottoman Turkish dönmek means to turn, and the dunam probably follows the Byzantine Greek stremma, a land measure of similar size. Its legal definition was forty standard paces in length and breadth, but the real area differed from province to province, from just over 900 square meters in Ottoman Palestine to about 2,500 in Ottoman Iraq. Roughly it matched the land an ox team could plough in a day.

Today the metric dunam is standardised at exactly 1,000 square meters, a tenth of a hectare, and that is the figure used here. It is the working unit in Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and the Balkan dunam is mostly the same, with local exceptions such as about 1,600 square meters around Leskovac in Serbia. Under the British Mandate the dunam was 919.3 square meters until the metric version was adopted in 1928. Cyprus lists its donum at 1,338 square meters, and the old Ottoman stremma in Greece is given as about 1,270.

Sources: Wikipedia: Dunam

Dunam conversion chart

1 dunam expressed in every other area unit:

More Middle Eastern units

• feddan (area)

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