Oxgangs to Hectares (oxgang to ha)

1 oxgang equals 6.070284634 hectares (rounded).

1 oxgang = 6.070284634 hectares

How to convert oxgangs to hectares

To convert oxgangs to hectares, multiply the number of oxgangs by 6.070284634. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply hectares by 0.164736921 (rounded).

hectares = oxgangs × 6.070284634

Example: 10 oxgangs = 60.70284634 hectares.

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

About these units

Oxgang (oxgang)

Medieval EnglishHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

About 15 acres, an eighth of a hide: the area an ox could plow in a season. Actual sizes varied by region.

Oxgang means the land an ox could go over, from Old English oxangang. Its Latin twin, bovata or bovate, comes from the word for ox, and a peasant holding one was called an oxganger or bovater. The unit belonged mainly to the Danelaw, the part of England settled by Vikings, where Domesday Book records it in Latin as bovata.

Eight oxgangs made a carucate, the ploughland of a full eight-ox team, so two oxgangs equalled a virgate. Wikipedia gives an English average of about 15 acres, and says elsewhere that it could be as little as 15 and averaged roughly 20, depending on soil and local custom. The figure used here is 15 acres, close to 60,700 square meters.

Scotland kept a parallel system in which eight oxgangs formed a ploughgate. The word survives in place names such as Oxgangs, a suburb of Edinburgh, and Oxgang in Kirkintilloch.

1 oxgang = 60,702.84634 square meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Oxgang; Wikipedia: Carucate; Domesday Book Online: Glossary

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

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