Square Miles to Virgates (mi² to virgate)
1 square mile equals 21.33333333 virgates (rounded).
How to convert square miles to virgates
To convert square miles to virgates, multiply the number of square miles by 21.33333333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply virgates by 0.046875.
virgates = square miles × 21.33333333
Example: 10 square miles = 213.3333333 virgates.
Approximate value. Standards for the virgate 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 Mile (mi²)
640 acres or about 2.59 km². Used for the area of cities, states and countries in the US and UK.
A thousand Roman paces, mille passus, became the mile, and under Elizabeth I Parliament fixed the statute mile at eight furlongs, or 5,280 feet, in place of the older Roman-based value. The square mile inherits that length. Its most famous use came in the United States: the Land Ordinance of 1785 started the Public Land Survey System so that western land could be surveyed and sold to pay war debts, beginning with the Seven Ranges in eastern Ohio.
In that system a section is roughly one square mile, or 640 acres, and a township is 36 sections in a square six miles on a side. One square mile is nearly 2.59 million square meters. Chicago's Midway International Airport, at about 650 acres, covers roughly 1.02 square miles. Beware the phrase mile square: a region 20 miles square has 400 square miles, but so does a rectangle 10 by 40 miles. The US survey version of the mile was retired from 1 January 2023, but the international square mile remains the unit for cities, states and countries in the US and UK.
1 square mile = 2,589,988.11 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Square mile; Wikipedia: Public Land Survey System; Wikipedia: Mile
Virgate (virgate)
About 30 acres, a quarter of a hide. The typical peasant holding in medieval England; notionally 30 acres but seldom exactly.
Medieval peasants in much of England held land by the yardland, from the Old English gyrd landes. After yard came to mean three feet, scholars coined the Latin-style term virgate to keep the two senses apart. It was the plot that a team of two oxen could plough in a year.
As a fraction of the hide it was usually a quarter, notionally but seldom exactly 30 acres, so it was chiefly a tax assessment and not a surveyed area. In the Danelaw it equalled two oxgangs, and four virgates made a carucate. Some regions split it further into four nooks, with a nook sometimes divided again into a farundel.
The figure used here is 30 acres, about 121,400 square meters, a convenient benchmark. Real holdings ranged widely, and a virgate-holder was a typical villager, farming a share of the open fields in strips.
1 virgate = 121,405.6927 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Virgate; Wikipedia: Hide (unit); Domesday Book Online: Glossary
Related conversions
- Virgates to square miles (reverse)
- Square miles to square meters
- Square miles to square kilometers
- Square miles to hectares
- Square miles to square inches
- Square miles to square feet
- Square miles to square yards
- Square miles to acres
- Square miles to square centimeters
- Square miles to square millimeters
- Square miles to tsubo
- Square miles to pyeong
- Square miles to rai (Thai)
- Square meters to virgates
- Square kilometers to virgates
- Hectares to virgates
- Square inches to virgates
- Square feet to virgates
- Square yards to virgates
- Acres to virgates
See all area units.