Virgates to Square Inches (virgate to in²)

1 virgate equals 188,179,200 square inches exactly.

1 virgate = 188,179,200 square inches

How to convert virgates to square inches

To convert virgates to square inches, multiply the number of virgates by 188,179,200. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square inches by 5.314083597×10⁻⁹ (rounded).

square inches = virgates × 188,179,200

Example: 10 virgates = 1,881,792,000 square inches.

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 Inch (in²)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

A square one inch on a side, exactly 6.4516 cm². Used for small parts and for pressure (pounds per square inch).

Latin uncia, one twelfth, gave English the inch, which Old English borrowed as ynce. A statute of Edward II in 1324 defined it as three barleycorns, dry and round, set end to end, and the barleycorn remained the base for centuries after 1066. The modern square inch rests on a 20th-century agreement: the United States adopted a yard of exactly 0.9144 meter on 1 July 1959, the United Kingdom followed effective 1 January 1964, and the inch became exactly 25.4 mm.

Squaring that gives exactly 6.4516 cm² for one square inch, and one square meter is about 1,550 of them. Its best-known descendant is the pound per square inch, psi, the pressure unit still used for American tires and air tanks: atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 14.7 psi, a car tire is typically inflated to around 32 psi above the surrounding air, and one psi is about 6.895 kilopascals. The square inch itself is common in the US and UK for small parts and printed material.

1 square inch = 0.00064516 square meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Square inch; Wikipedia: Inch; Wikipedia: Pounds per square inch

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