Mu (Chinese) (mu)

ChineseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Exactly 10,000/15 m² (666.67 m²), one fifteenth of a hectare. The standard unit of farmland in China.

1 mu (Chinese) = 666.6666667 square meters (approximately).

About the mu (Chinese)

A mu was once a plot defined by a square count of bu, the double pace used as a surveying step. Han-era writers recalled that in earlier times 100 square bu made a mu, while in their own day 240 were needed, and calculations from Han rulers give a mu of roughly 461 m². The size kept shifting. The 1915 Beiyang government law defined it as 60 square zhang, about 614.4 m².

The Republic's 1930 market system settled on 1/15 of a hectare, which is the 666.67 m² used here, and the mu is the only traditional Chinese area unit that survived the 1959 State Council decree. Farmland statistics in China are still given in mu, so that 15 mu make one hectare and 1,500 mu a square kilometre. Hong Kong and Macau use a mou of about 761.4 m², while Taiwan and Japan use a unit of about 99.17 m². The idiom of one mu and three fen of land describes a person's small personal patch.

Sources: Wikipedia: Mu (unit); Wikipedia: Chinese units of measurement

Mu (Chinese) conversion chart

1 mu (Chinese) expressed in every other area unit:

More Chinese units

• qing (Chinese) (area)
• fen (Chinese) (length)
• cun (Chinese) (length)
• chi (Chinese) (length)
• zhang (Chinese) (length)
• li (Chinese) (length)
• qian (Chinese) (weight & mass)
• liang (Chinese) (weight & mass)
• jin (Chinese) (weight & mass)
• dan (Chinese) (weight & mass)
• catty (Hong Kong) (weight & mass)
• tael (Hong Kong) (weight & mass)
• shichen (time)
• yi / oku (East Asian) (counting & quantity)

All Chinese units

Browse all area units.