The square metre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square meter ( American spelling) is the unit of area 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. E ...

(SI) with symbol m². It is the area of a square with sides one metre in length. Adding and subtracting

SI prefix 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. E ...

es creates multiples and submultiples; however, as the unit is exponentiated, the quantities grow exponentially by the corresponding power of 10. 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 ex ...

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 au ...

) 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 Square kilometre ( International spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square kilometer (American spelling), symbol km2, is a multiple of the square metre, the SI unit of area or surface area. 1 km2 is eq ...

(km²) * square centimetres (cm²) * hectares (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 municipa ...

s (a) * deciares (da) * centiare (ca) *

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s *

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 yards * 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