Square Meters to Square Rods (m² to sq rd)
1 square meter equals 0.03953686103 square rods (rounded).
How to convert square meters to square rods
To convert square meters to square rods, multiply the number of square meters by 0.03953686103. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply square rods by 25.29285264.
square rods = square meters × 0.03953686103
Example: 10 square meters = 0.3953686103 square rods.
About these units
Square Meter (m²)
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
Square Rod (sq rd)
30.25 square yards (25.29 m²), also called a perch. 160 square rods make an acre.
Perch is the older name for this small square, and it traces back to the Roman pertica, a measuring pole. The word rod became the preferred surveyors' term in England, where land measurers carrying rods, poles or knotted cords were in demand after Henry VIII took over church estates in 1536. A square rod is the square on a rod of 16.5 feet, which works out to 272.25 square feet, or 30.25 square yards.
The odd-looking number makes sense through the acre. Edmund Gunter's 66-foot chain is four rods long, so a square chain holds 16 square rods, and ten square chains make an acre. That means 160 square rods fill an acre, and a rood holds 40. Metric equivalents are about 25.29 square meters, a little under the floor area of a small garage. Rods and perches turned up in deeds, tax records and plot descriptions for centuries, and a few English-speaking regions still quote small building plots in perches.
1 square rod = 25.29285264 square meters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Rod (unit); Wikipedia: Chain (unit); Wikipedia: Acre
Related conversions
- Square rods to square meters (reverse)
- Square meters to square kilometers
- Square meters to hectares
- Square meters to square inches
- Square meters to square feet
- Square meters to square yards
- Square meters to acres
- Square meters to square miles
- Square meters to square centimeters
- Square meters to square millimeters
- Square meters to tsubo
- Square meters to pyeong
- Square meters to rai (Thai)
- Square kilometers to square rods
- Hectares to square rods
- Square inches to square rods
- Square feet to square rods
- Square yards to square rods
- Acres to square rods
- Square miles to square rods
See all area units.