The square metre ( international spelling as used by the

International Bureau of Weights and Measures The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry ...

) or square meter (

American spelling Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American ...

) is the unit of

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an op ...

in the

International System of Units The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. ...

(SI) with symbol m². It is the area of a square with sides one

metre The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pre ...

in length. Adding and subtracting SI prefixes creates multiples and submultiples; however, as the unit is exponentiated, the quantities grow exponentially by the corresponding

power of 10 A power of 10 is any of the integer powers of the number ten; in other words, ten multiplied by itself a certain number of times (when the power is a positive integer). By definition, the number one is a power (the zeroth power) of ten. The fi ...

. For example, 1

kilometre The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ...

is 10³ (one thousand) times the length of 1 metre, but 1 square kilometre is (10³)² (10⁶, one

million One million (1,000,000), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the a ...

) times the area of 1 square metre, and 1 cubic kilometre is (10³)³ (10⁹, one billion) cubic metres.

SI prefixes applied

The square metre may be used with all SI prefixes used with the metre.

Unicode characters

Unicode has several characters used to represent metric area units, but these are for compatibility with East Asian character encodings and are meant to be used in new documents. * * * * * Instead, the Unicode superscript can be used, as in m².

Conversions

One square metre is equal to: * square kilometre (km²) * square centimetres (cm²) *

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre i ...

s (ha) * decares (daa) *

are Are commonly refers to: * Are (unit), a unit of area equal to 100 m2 Are, ARE or Åre may also refer to: Places * Åre, a locality in Sweden * Åre Municipality, a municipality in Sweden ** Åre ski resort in Sweden * Are Parish, a munici ...

s (a) * deciares (da) *

centiare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

(ca) * acres *

cent Cent may refer to: Currency * Cent (currency), a one-hundredth subdivision of several units of currency * Penny (Canadian coin), a Canadian coin removed from circulation in 2013 * 1 cent (Dutch coin), a Dutch coin minted between 1941 and 1944 * ...

s *

square yard The square yard ( Northern India: gaj, Pakistan: gaz) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit of area. It is in widespread use in most of the English-speaking world, particularly the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Pakistan and Indi ...

s * square feet * square inches

Examples

* One square meter can stand up to 5 people at the same time.

Notes

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External links