Dunams

A dunam (Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount of land that could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a day. The legal definition was "forty standard paces in length and breadth", but its actual area varied considerably from place to place, from a little more than in Ottoman Palestine to around in Iraq.Λεξικό της κοινής Νεοελληνικής (Dictionary of Modern Greek), Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1998.

The unit is still in use in many areas previously ruled by the Ottomans, although the new or metric dunam has been redefined as exactly one decare (), which is 1/10 hectare (1/10 × ), like the modern Greek royal stremma.

History

The name dönüm, from the Ottoman Turkish ''dönmek'' (, "to turn"), appears to be a calque of the Byzantine Greek ''stremma'' and had the same size. It was likely adopted by the Ottomans from the Byzantines in Mysia-Bithynia.

''The Dictionary of Modern Greek'' defines the old Ottoman stremma as approximately , but Costas Lapavitsas used the value of for the region of Naoussa in the early 20th century.

Definition

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro

In Bosnia and Herzegovina and also Serbia, the unit is called ''dulum'' (дулум) or ''dunum'' (дунум). In Bosnia and Herzegovina dunum (or dulum) equals . One dulum is equal to for the region of Leskovac, south Serbia.
In Albania it is called dynym or dylym. It is equal to .

Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, the decare (декар) is used.

Cyprus

In Cyprus, a donum is or 14400 square feet. In the Republic of Cyprus older Greek-Cypriots also still refer to the donum using the local Greek Cypriot dialect word σκάλες kales rather than the mainland Greek word stremma (equivalent to a decare). However, since 1986 officially Cyprus uses the square metre and the hectare.

A donum consists of 4 evleks, each of which consists of or 3.600 square feet.

Greece

In Greece, the old dönüm is called a "Turkish stremma", while today, a stremma or "royal stremma" is exactly one decare, like the metric dönüm.

Iraq

In Iraq, the dunam is .

Levant and Turkey

In the Levant and Turkey, the dunam is , which is 1 decare. From the Ottoman period and through the early years of the British Mandate for Palestine, the size of a dunam was , but in 1928, the metric dunam of was adopted, and this is still used.

United Arab Emirates

The Dubai Statistics Center an
Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi
use the metric dunam (spelt as donum) for data relating to agricultural land use. One donum equals .

Variations

Other countries using a dunam of some size include Libya and Syria.

Conversions

A metric dunam is equal to:

* 1,000 square metres (exactly)
* 10 ares (exactly)
* 1 decare (exactly)
* 0.1 hectares (exactly)
* 0.001 square kilometres (exactly)
* 0.247105381 acres (approx)
* 1,195.99005 square yards (approx)
* 10,763.9104 square feet (approx)

Comparable measures

The Byzantine Greek stremma was the probable source of the Turkish unit. The zeugarion (Turkish çift) was a similar unit derived from the area plowed by a team of oxen in a day. The English acre was originally similar to both units in principle, although it developed separately.

See also

* Orders of magnitude (area) for further comparisons
* Conversion of units
* Feddan, a similar non-SI unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan, and Syria.
* Resm-i donum, a land tax based on the area of a farm.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Foreign Weights and Measures Formerly in Common Use







Units of area
Turkish words and phrases
Metricated units