Virgates to Square Feet (virgate to ft²)

1 virgate equals 1,306,800 square feet exactly.

1 virgate = 1,306,800 square feet

How to convert virgates to square feet

To convert virgates to square feet, multiply the number of virgates by 1,306,800. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square feet by 7.65228038×10⁻⁷ (rounded).

square feet = virgates × 1,306,800

Example: 10 virgates = 13,068,000 square feet.

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

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

Square Foot (ft²)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

Exactly 0.09290304 m². The standard unit for floor areas and real estate in the US, UK and India.

Feet came first, and they were not all the same length. As a body-based unit, the foot ranged historically between about 250 and 335 millimeters, with ancient Greek and Roman feet near 300 mm. In medieval England a statute foot was set at 10/11 of an older Belgic foot, and Charlemagne's attempt around 790 to standardize units largely failed. The square foot is simply that length squared, so its size changed along with the foot.

The 1959 international agreement fixed the foot at exactly 0.3048 meter, so one square foot is exactly 0.09290304 m², or 144 square inches. The United Kingdom adopted the new foot in 1964. Today the square foot is the usual way of listing property in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Singapore and Hong Kong, although the measuring convention varies: agents may measure corner to corner, subtract unheated space, or add heated space that extends beyond the end-to-end measurement. The world's smallest park has been reported at 2.6 sq ft.

1 square foot = 0.09290304 square meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Square foot; Wikipedia: Foot (unit); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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