Square Meter: SI unit of area
The square meter is the SI-derived unit of area.
It has a symbol m² (33A1 in Unicode). It is defined as the area of a square whose sides measure exactly one meter. The square meter is derived from the SI base unit of the meter, which in turn is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in absolute vacuum during a time interval of of a second.
Adding SI prefixes creates multiples and submultiples. However, as the unit is squared, the order of magnitude difference between units doubles from their comparable linear units. For example, a kilometer is one thousand times the length of a meter, but a square kilometer is one million times the area of a square meter.
A "square meter" is not the same thing as a "meter square" [source?] - although it is true that exactly 1 square meter is exactly 1 meter square. But that only works for the number 1; no other.
For example, a square that is 2 meters long and 2 meters wide has 4 square meters of area.
But a square that is 4 meters squared would have 4 meters on each side. This means it would have 16 square meters of area.
That is, is 4 meters squared, whereas is 4 square meters.
SI prefixes applied to the square meter
The square meter may be used with all SI prefixes used with the meter.
| Multiple | Name | Symbol | Multiple | Name | Symbol | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | square meter (centiare) | m² | 100 | square meter (centiare) | m² | |
| 102 | square decameter (are) | dam² | 10−2 | square decimeter | dm² | |
| 104 | square hectometer (hectare) | hm² | 10−4 | square centimeter | cm² | |
| 106 | square kilometer | km² | 10−6 | square millimeter | mm² | |
| 1012 | square megameter | Mm² | 10−12 | square micrometer | µm² | |
| 1018 | square gigameter | Gm² | 10−18 | square nanometer | nm² | |
| 1024 | square terameter | Tm² | 10−24 | square picometer | pm² | |
| 1030 | square petameter | Pm² | 10−30 | square femtometer | fm² | |
| 1036 | square exameter | Em² | 10−36 | square attometer | am² | |
| 1042 | square zettameter | Zm² | 10−42 | square zeptometer | zm² | |
| 1048 | square yottameter | Ym² | 10−48 | square yoctometer | ym² |
Conversions
A square meter is equal to:
- 0.000 001 square kilometer (km²)
- 10,000 square centimeters (cm²)
- 0.000 1 hectares (ha)
- 0.01 ares (a)
- 1 centiare (ca)
- 0.000 247 105 381 acres
- 1.195 990 square yards
- 10.763 911 square feet
- 1,550.003 1 square inches
Related pages
Notes
Other websites
- BIPM (SI maintenance agency) Archived 2005-03-06 at the Wayback Machine (home page)
- BIPM brochure (SI reference)
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