The square metre ( international spelling as used by the

International Bureau of Weights and Measures The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (, BIPM) is an List of intergovernmental organizations, intergovernmental organisation, through which its 64 member-states act on measurement standards in areas including chemistry, ionising radi ...

) or square meter (

American spelling Despite the various list of dialects of English, 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 variati ...

) is the unit of

area Area is the measure of a region's size on a 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 open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...

in the

International System of Units The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French ), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. It is the only system of measurement with official s ...

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

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

with sides one

metre The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

in length. Adding and subtracting

SI prefix The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French ), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. It is the only system of measurement with official st ...

es creates multiples and submultiples; however, as the unit is exponentiated, the

quantities Quantity or amount is a property that can exist as a multitude or magnitude, which illustrate discontinuity and continuity. Quantities can be compared in terms of "more", "less", or "equal", or by assigning a numerical value multiple of a u ...

grow exponentially by the corresponding

power of 10 In mathematics, 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 ...

. For example, 1

kilometre The kilometre (SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, American and Philippine 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 the ...

is 10³ (one

thousand 1000 or one thousand is the natural number following 999 and preceding 1001. In most English-speaking countries, it can be written with or without a comma or sometimes a period separating the thousands digit: 1,000. A group of one thousand ...

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

million 1,000,000 (one million), 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 ...

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

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: * 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...

) 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 The square kilometre (square kilometer in American spelling; symbol: km2) is a multiple of the square metre, the SI unit of area or surface area. In the SI unit of area (m2), 1 km2 is equal to 1M(m2). 1 km2 is equal to: * 1,000,000 squar ...

(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), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s (ha) * decares (daa) * ares (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), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. A ...

(ca) *

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s * cents *

square yard The square yard (Indian English, Northern India: guz, gaj, Pakistani English, Pakistan: gaz) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit of area. It is in widespread use in most of the English language, English-speaking world, particularly the U ...

s *

square feet The square foot (; abbreviated sq ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2 and ⏍) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pa ...

square inch A square inch (plural: square inches) is a unit of area, equal to the area of a square with sides of one inch. The following symbols are used to denote square inches: *square in *sq inches, sq inch, sq in *inches/-2, inch/-2, in/-2 *inches^2, ...

Notes

{{Reflist

External links

BIPM (SI maintenance agency)
(home page)
BIPM brochure
(SI reference) Units of area SI derived units

SI prefixes applied

Unicode characters

Conversions

See also

Notes

External links