Virgates to Square Yards (virgate to yd²)
1 virgate equals 145,200 square yards exactly.
How to convert virgates to square yards
To convert virgates to square yards, multiply the number of virgates by 145,200. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply square yards by 0.000006887052342 (rounded).
square yards = virgates × 145,200
Example: 10 virgates = 1,452,000 square yards.
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 Yard (yd²)
9 square feet (0.8361 m²). Used for carpet, turf and land in the UK and India (where it is called a gaj).
Branches and rods lie behind this unit. The word yard comes from Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a staff or measuring rod, and it first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, where a yard of land was a tax unit. Where its length came from is uncertain: pacing, the cubit and the arm of King Henry I have all been suggested. A square yard is simply a square of that length on each side.
After the 1959 agreement among six countries fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, the square yard became exactly 9 square feet, 1,296 square inches or about 0.836 m². It is used across the English-speaking world, notably in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India and Pakistan. In northern India it is called a gaj, and in Pakistan a gaz, and house plots there are often quoted in it. In the US and UK the yard, divided into eighths, is also how cloth is bought, so the square yard suits flooring and fabric in the same breath.
1 square yard = 0.83612736 square meters (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Square yard; Wikipedia: Yard; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors
Related conversions
- Square yards to virgates (reverse)
- Virgates to square meters
- Virgates to square kilometers
- Virgates to hectares
- Virgates to square inches
- Virgates to square feet
- Virgates to acres
- Virgates to square miles
- Square meters to square yards
- Square kilometers to square yards
- Hectares to square yards
- Square inches to square yards
- Square feet to square yards
- Acres to square yards
- Square miles to square yards
- Square centimeters to square yards
- Square millimeters to square yards
- Tsubo to square yards
- Pyeong to square yards
- Rai (Thai) to square yards
See all area units.