Square Yards to Virgates (yd² to virgate)

1 square yard equals 0.000006887052342 virgates (rounded).

1 square yard = 0.000006887052342 virgates

How to convert square yards to virgates

To convert square yards to virgates, multiply the number of square yards by 0.000006887052342. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply virgates by 145,200.

virgates = square yards × 0.000006887052342

Example: 10 square yards = 0.00006887052342 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 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

Virgate (virgate)

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

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

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