Virgates to Square Miles (virgate to mi²)
1 virgate equals 0.046875 square miles exactly.
How to convert virgates to square miles
To convert virgates to square miles, multiply the number of virgates by 0.046875. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square miles by 21.33333333 (rounded).
square miles = virgates × 0.046875
Example: 10 virgates = 0.46875 square miles.
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)
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 Mile (mi²)
640 acres or about 2.59 km². Used for the area of cities, states and countries in the US and UK.
A thousand Roman paces, mille passus, became the mile, and under Elizabeth I Parliament fixed the statute mile at eight furlongs, or 5,280 feet, in place of the older Roman-based value. The square mile inherits that length. Its most famous use came in the United States: the Land Ordinance of 1785 started the Public Land Survey System so that western land could be surveyed and sold to pay war debts, beginning with the Seven Ranges in eastern Ohio.
In that system a section is roughly one square mile, or 640 acres, and a township is 36 sections in a square six miles on a side. One square mile is nearly 2.59 million square meters. Chicago's Midway International Airport, at about 650 acres, covers roughly 1.02 square miles. Beware the phrase mile square: a region 20 miles square has 400 square miles, but so does a rectangle 10 by 40 miles. The US survey version of the mile was retired from 1 January 2023, but the international square mile remains the unit for cities, states and countries in the US and UK.
1 square mile = 2,589,988.11 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Square mile; Wikipedia: Public Land Survey System; Wikipedia: Mile
Related conversions
- Square miles to virgates (reverse)
- Virgates to square meters
- Virgates to square kilometers
- Virgates to hectares
- Virgates to square inches
- Virgates to square feet
- Virgates to square yards
- Virgates to acres
- Square meters to square miles
- Square kilometers to square miles
- Hectares to square miles
- Square inches to square miles
- Square feet to square miles
- Square yards to square miles
- Acres to square miles
- Square centimeters to square miles
- Square millimeters to square miles
- Tsubo to square miles
- Pyeong to square miles
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See all area units.