Iugera to Square Meters (iugerum to m²)

1 iugerum equals 2,523.3408 square meters exactly.

1 iugerum = 2,523.3408 square meters

How to convert iugera to square meters

To convert iugera to square meters, multiply the number of iugera by 2,523.3408. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square meters by 0.0003963000162 (rounded).

square meters = iugera × 2,523.3408

Example: 10 iugera = 25,233.408 square meters.

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

About these units

Iugerum (iugerum)

Ancient RomanHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

28,800 square Roman feet, about 2,523 m² (0.62 acre). The area a yoke of oxen could plow in a day.

Plowland gave the iugerum its meaning. Pliny the Elder described it as the ground a single yoke of oxen could work in a day, and the name is generally linked to the Latin iugum, a yoke, though the exact derivation is argued. Columella instead tied it to the idea of joining two actus together.

Its form was a rectangle 240 Roman feet by 120, or 28,800 square feet, which works out to about 71 by 35.5 m. With the usual 296 mm foot that gives roughly 2,523 m2, the figure used here, or close to a quarter of a hectare and 0.62 acre. A slightly different foot would move the total a little, so the figure is approximate.

The Romans built a whole land system on it. Two iugera made a heredium, the plot supposedly granted to each early citizen as heritable property, and 100 heredia made a centuria. Surveyors also split it into uncial fractions, down to the scrupulum of 100 square feet. In Gaul, half an iugerum was the arepennis, which fed into the French arpent.

1 iugerum = 2,523.3408 square meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Jugerum; Wikipedia: Roman units of measurement

Square Meter (m²)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI unit of area: a square one meter on each side. Used for floor areas and property sizes in most of the world.

Squaring the meter was built into the metric system from the start. The French law of 18 Germinal, Year III (7 April 1795) defined the are, the land unit that gave the hectare its name, as exactly 100 square meters, so the square meter was already the foundation of metric land measure. Nobody is credited with inventing it as a separate unit. It is simply the area of a square one meter on each side, and any SI prefix that works for the meter works for it, with the prefix squared along with the unit.

That squaring catches people out: a square kilometer is one million square meters, not one thousand. Since 1983 the meter has been defined through the speed of light, so the square meter is tied to a constant of nature as well as to the second. A hectare, about the area of Trafalgar Square in London, is 10,000 square meters. In everyday terms one square meter is about 10.76 square feet. Unicode has a compatibility character for it, but the recommended way to write it is the plain superscript two: m².

The square meter is the reference unit for area on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Square metre; Wikipedia: Are (unit); NIST: the meter and the SI redefinition

Related conversions

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