Feddan (fd)

Middle EasternTraditional unit (still used in some regions)Approximate value

About 4,200 m² (1.037 acres). The standard unit of farmland in Egypt, divided into 24 qirat.

1 feddan = 4,200 square meters (approximately).

Approximate value. Standards for the feddan varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About the feddan

In Classical Arabic faddan meant a yoke of oxen, so the name points to the ground a team could plough in a season. That idea explains why the feddan was never a single fixed size everywhere: in Syria it stayed vague, covering roughly 5 to 12 hectares of land worked by a pair of oxen over a year.

Egypt gave it a precise value. The metric system became optional there in 1873 and compulsory for government use in 1891, and the 1891 equivalences set the feddan near 4,200.8 square metres. The main Wikipedia article rounds this to 4,200 square metres, based on a plot of 60 by 70 metres, and the figure used here follows that article. The two readings differ by well under a tenth of a percent, or about 1.04 acres.

The feddan is divided into 24 qirat, each about 175 square metres, with a finer sahm equal to one 576th of a feddan. It was the one non-metric unit that stayed in everyday use in Egypt after metrication, and it is still the normal measure for farmland there, with use in Sudan, South Sudan and Oman as well.

Sources: Wikipedia: Feddan; Wikipedia: Egyptian units of measurement

Feddan conversion chart

1 feddan expressed in every other area unit:

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