Townships to Square Kilometers (twp to km²)

1 township equals 93.23994493 square kilometers (rounded).

1 township = 93.23994493 square kilometers

How to convert townships to square kilometers

To convert townships to square kilometers, multiply the number of townships by 93.23994493. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply square kilometers by 0.01072501706 (rounded).

square kilometers = townships × 93.23994493

Example: 10 townships = 932.3994493 square kilometers.

About these units

Township (twp)

US land surveyTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

36 sections: a square 6 survey miles on a side (23,040 acres). Used in US land records.

Western descriptions of land such as T2N, R3E refer to townships in the survey sense: a block six miles on a side, nominally 36 square miles or 23,040 acres. T counts six-mile steps north or south of a baseline, while R counts six-mile steps east or west of a principal meridian. Each region's grid hangs from an initial point where the two meet, and one meridian can serve several states, as the Willamette Meridian does for Oregon and Washington.

Meridians converge toward the pole, so townships would shrink to the north if nothing were done. Surveyors therefore laid standard parallels, commonly every 24 or 30 miles, to reset the width. The first lands laid out this way were the Seven Ranges in eastern Ohio, and Jefferson is credited with promoting the system to support a country of independent farmers. A survey township is distinct from a civil township, which is a unit of local government in about 20 states and may follow the survey lines or ignore them.

1 township = 93,239,944.93 square meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Township (United States); Wikipedia: Public Land Survey System

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

Related conversions

See all area units.