Feddans to Square Kilometers (fd to km²)

1 feddan equals 0.0042 square kilometers exactly.

1 feddan = 0.0042 square kilometers

How to convert feddans to square kilometers

To convert feddans to square kilometers, multiply the number of feddans by 0.0042. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square kilometers by 238.0952381 (rounded).

square kilometers = feddans × 0.0042

Example: 10 feddans = 0.042 square kilometers.

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 these units

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.

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.

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

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

Square Kilometer (km²)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One million square meters (100 hectares). Used for the area of cities, countries and lakes.

Metric land measure took a surprisingly long time to settle on the kilometer. The meter was defined in 1799, yet people initially preferred the myriameter, 10,000 meters, and the French phrase myriamètres par heure was still in print in 1802. The Netherlands adopted the kilometer in 1817 under the name mijl. Once the kilometer was established, the square kilometer followed naturally as the unit for areas too large to count comfortably in hectares or square meters.

One square kilometer is 1,000,000 square meters, or 100 hectares, about 0.3861 square miles or 247.1 acres. A useful picture comes from history: many medieval European cities were enclosed by walls around roughly a square kilometer, with Delft at about 0.9 km² and Lucca at about 1.09 km². A standard 18-hole golf course of 6,000 meters needs about 0.8 km². The symbol km² means the square of a kilometer, not a thousand square meters. The planned Square Kilometre Array radio telescope takes its name from the collecting area it aims for.

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

Sources: Wikipedia: Square kilometre; Wikipedia: Kilometres per hour

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