Tsubo

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Exactly 400/121 m² (3.3058 m²), one square ken: about two tatami mats. Still the usual unit for land and property prices in Japan.

1 tsubo = 3.305785124 square meters (approximately).

About the tsubo

Walk into a Japanese estate agent's window and the land is still priced per tsubo. The unit is the area of a square ken, which is six shaku on a side, so 36 square shaku. Once the shaku was fixed at 10/33 metre, the tsubo followed as exactly 400/121 square metres, about 3.306.

Builders think of it as two tatami mats, since a mat is half a tsubo, and some sources also count it as 10 go. In farming contexts the same area is sometimes called a bu. A tsubo is a very small plot, so larger land is quoted in multiples such as the se, tan and cho.

The unit travelled with Japanese rule. Korea's pyeong and Taiwan's ping are the same 3.3058 square metres. South Korea formally banned the pyeong in 1961 and made commercial use an offence in 2007, yet it persists informally, much as Japan kept the tsubo after metric units became the legal standard.

Sources: Wikipedia: Tsubo; Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement; Wikipedia: Shaku (unit)

Tsubo conversion chart

1 tsubo expressed in every other area unit:

More Japanese units

• jō (tatami mat) (area)
• se (area)
• tan (area)
• chō (area) (area)
• sun (length)
• shaku (length)
• ken (length)
• jō (length)
• chō (length)
• ri (Japanese) (length)
• monme (weight & mass)
• kin (weight & mass)
• kan (weight & mass)
• gō (volume)
• shō (volume)
• tō (volume)

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