Square Kilometers to Oxgangs (km² to oxgang)

1 square kilometer equals 16.4736921 oxgangs (rounded).

1 square kilometer = 16.4736921 oxgangs

How to convert square kilometers to oxgangs

To convert square kilometers to oxgangs, multiply the number of square kilometers by 16.4736921. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply oxgangs by 0.06070284634 (rounded).

oxgangs = square kilometers × 16.4736921

Example: 10 square kilometers = 164.736921 oxgangs.

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

Square Kilometer (km²)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One million square meters (100 hectares). Used for the area of cities, countries and lakes.

Metric land measure took a surprisingly long time to settle on the kilometer. The meter was defined in 1799, yet people initially preferred the myriameter, 10,000 meters, and the French phrase myriamètres par heure was still in print in 1802. The Netherlands adopted the kilometer in 1817 under the name mijl. Once the kilometer was established, the square kilometer followed naturally as the unit for areas too large to count comfortably in hectares or square meters.

One square kilometer is 1,000,000 square meters, or 100 hectares, about 0.3861 square miles or 247.1 acres. A useful picture comes from history: many medieval European cities were enclosed by walls around roughly a square kilometer, with Delft at about 0.9 km² and Lucca at about 1.09 km². A standard 18-hole golf course of 6,000 meters needs about 0.8 km². The symbol km² means the square of a kilometer, not a thousand square meters. The planned Square Kilometre Array radio telescope takes its name from the collecting area it aims for.

1 square kilometer = 1,000,000 square meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Square kilometre; Wikipedia: Kilometres per hour

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

Related conversions

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