Hectares to Sections (ha to section)

1 hectare equals 0.003861006141 sections (rounded).

1 hectare = 0.003861006141 sections

How to convert hectares to sections

To convert hectares to sections, multiply the number of hectares by 0.003861006141. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply sections by 258.999847 (rounded).

sections = hectares × 0.003861006141

Example: 10 hectares = 0.03861006141 sections.

About these units

Hectare (ha)

Metric (SI)Current unit

10,000 square meters (2.471 acres). The standard unit for land and agricultural areas outside the US.

Hecto plus are: the name was coined in French, and are itself comes from the Latin area, meaning an open space. The French law of 18 Germinal, Year III (7 April 1795) defined the are as 100 square meters, and the hectare followed as 100 ares, or 10,000 square meters. The unit is therefore a product of the original French metric reforms rather than of later SI work, which is one reason its official status has always been slightly awkward.

When the SI was set up in 1960 the are was not recognized, and the hectare was classed as a non-SI unit accepted for use with it. In practice it is the standard unit for land ownership, planning and agriculture in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, while the United States and Myanmar stay with the acre. A hectare is a square 100 meters on each side, about the size of Trafalgar Square, and equals roughly 2.47 acres. One hundred of them make a square kilometer.

1 hectare = 10,000 square meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Hectare; Wikipedia: Are (unit); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Section (section)

US land surveyTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

One square US survey mile (640 acres). The basic unit of the US Public Land Survey System.

Under the Land Ordinance of 1785, territory outside the existing states could not be sold or settled until it had been surveyed, and the basic parcel of that grid was the section: a square mile, about 2.6 square kilometers, holding 640 acres. Thirty-six of them make a township. Numbering runs back and forth in a snaking pattern, starting with section 1 in the northeast corner and ending with section 36 in the southeast.

Sections were meant to be cut into smaller pieces. A quarter section is 160 acres, and the Homestead Act of 1862 let a settler claim that amount after living on it and improving it for five years. Quarter-quarters of 40 acres are still used in legal descriptions. Section 16 was set aside to fund local schools, and in several western states section 36 was added too. In practice few sections are perfect squares, because the curve of the Earth, compass errors and rough terrain bent the lines, and the original survey monuments still take legal precedence over later measurement.

1 section = 2,589,998.47 square meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Section (United States land surveying); Wikipedia: Public Land Survey System

Related conversions

See all area units.