hehtaaria

Hehtaaria is the Finnish term for the unit of area known in English as the hectare. One hectare equals 10,000 square meters, which is also 0.01 square kilometers. The standard symbol is ha. The term is widely used in land measurement for farms, forests, and development plots.

Origin and name: The hectare derives from the prefix hecto- meaning hundred and the unit are, which is defined as 100 square meters. A hectare is equal to 100 ares, hence 10,000 square meters in total.

Usage and geographic scope: The hectare is not a base SI unit, but it is an accepted unit for use with SI. It is widely used in Finland, other European countries, and much of the world for expressing land area because it is more practical for large plots than square meters. In everyday language, people may say “50 hehtaaria” to mean 50 hectares.

Conversions: 1 ha = 10,000 m^2; 1 ha = 0.01 km^2; 1 ha ≈ 2.471 acres; 1 ha ≈ 0.00386102 square miles.

Examples: Typical sizes vary from a few hectares for small farms to hundreds of hectares for larger agricultural or forested areas.

See also: Are, square metre, acre, square kilometre, area.