Square Chains to Square Yards (sq ch to yd²)

1 square chain equals 484 square yards exactly.

1 square chain = 484 square yards

How to convert square chains to square yards

To convert square chains to square yards, multiply the number of square chains by 484. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square yards by 0.002066115702 (rounded).

square yards = square chains × 484

Example: 10 square chains = 4,840 square yards.

About these units

Square Chain (sq ch)

US & ImperialTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

484 square yards (404.69 m²), one tenth of an acre. A surveying unit.

Surveyors rather than farmers gave this unit its shape. In 1620 the English clergyman and mathematician Edmund Gunter devised a measuring chain of 100 links that was 66 feet long, and by 1675 it was in wide use. A square chain, 66 feet by 66 feet, covers 4,356 square feet, or 484 square yards. The convenient result is that ten of them make exactly one acre, so a plot measured in chains could be turned into acres by moving a decimal point.

That arithmetic was the reason the US adopted the chain. A report by Thomas Jefferson in 1784 led to the Land Ordinance of 1785, which required the chain for surveying the public lands, and many American property lines still trace back to chain measurements. In metric terms a square chain is about 404.69 square meters. The linear chain remains in niche use, for example in railway milepost distances in Britain, in wildfire spread rates in the United States, and as the length of a cricket pitch.

1 square chain = 404.6856422 square meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Chain (unit); Wikipedia: Acre; Wikipedia: Rod (unit)

Square Yard (yd²)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

9 square feet (0.8361 m²). Used for carpet, turf and land in the UK and India (where it is called a gaj).

Branches and rods lie behind this unit. The word yard comes from Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a staff or measuring rod, and it first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, where a yard of land was a tax unit. Where its length came from is uncertain: pacing, the cubit and the arm of King Henry I have all been suggested. A square yard is simply a square of that length on each side.

After the 1959 agreement among six countries fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, the square yard became exactly 9 square feet, 1,296 square inches or about 0.836 m². It is used across the English-speaking world, notably in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India and Pakistan. In northern India it is called a gaj, and in Pakistan a gaz, and house plots there are often quoted in it. In the US and UK the yard, divided into eighths, is also how cloth is bought, so the square yard suits flooring and fabric in the same breath.

1 square yard = 0.83612736 square meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Square yard; Wikipedia: Yard; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Related conversions

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