Land Measurements in India: Every Unit Explained (With Origins & Facts)

India uses over 15 distinct land measurement units, and many of them mean different things in different states. Bigha alone has six state-specific sizes. Here is every unit used across India — what it equals, where it is used, and where the name came from.

Why India Has So Many Land Units

Before British land surveys in the 18th and 19th centuries, each kingdom, princely state, and region measured land using local rods and ropes. The length of a "gaz" (yard) varied from court to court. A bigha in Oudh was not the same as a bigha in Bengal. The British standardised the acre and the square yard for revenue records, but local units survived in everyday use and in state land registration systems — where they remain today.

Standard Units (Used Nationwide)

Square Foot (sq ft)

The base unit for most property transactions in urban India. All regional units in this guide are defined by their conversion to square feet.

Square Yard / Gaj

1 gaj = 9 sq ft

The most widely used unit for residential plots in North India. Gaj is the Hindi/Urdu word borrowed from the Persian gaz — the measuring rod carried by Mughal revenue officers during the Ain-i-Akbari land surveys of the 16th century. Emperor Akbar standardised the ilahi gaz at 33 inches to create uniform revenue records across the Mughal empire. The British later aligned it to the imperial yard (36 inches), and the name stuck.

Delhi's property market still quotes plot sizes in gaj. A "100 gaj plot" = 900 sq ft.

Acre

1 acre = 43,560 sq ft

From Old English æcer, meaning "open field." Historically, an acre was the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plough in a single day — an informal measure long before it was formalised. The statute acre was fixed at 4,840 square yards (43,560 sq ft) and adopted across British territories, including India. It remains the dominant unit for agricultural land in most of India.

Hectare

1 hectare = 1,07,639 sq ft ≈ 2.47 acres

From Greek hekaton (100) and the French are (a unit of 100 sq m). One hectare = 100 × 100 sq m = 10,000 sq m. Introduced during metrication and used in government land records, agricultural census data, and forest surveys. Most farmers still think in acres and bighas, not hectares.

South India Units

Cent

1 cent = 435.6 sq ft | 100 cents = 1 acre

Used in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and parts of Karnataka. A cent is literally one-hundredth of an acre — the name mirrors the monetary cent (1/100 of a rupee). When the British introduced decimal land records in South India, they divided the acre into 100 equal parts and called each one a cent. It became the default unit for small urban plots and agricultural parcels.

Dismil (Decimal)

1 dismil = 435.6 sq ft | same size as 1 cent

Used in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha. Dismil is a phonetic corruption of decimal. Like cent, it represents one-hundredth of an acre — but the word "decimal" was used in the eastern British revenue circle while "cent" was used in the south. Same unit, two names, different regions.

Gunta (Guntha)

1 gunta = 1,089 sq ft | 40 guntas = 1 acre

Used in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. The word gunta comes from Kannada and Telugu, meaning a pit or a small enclosed plot. It is exactly one-fortieth of an acre. City plots in Pune and Hyderabad are still quoted in guntas for medium-sized land.

Ground

1 ground = 2,400 sq ft

Used almost exclusively in Tamil Nadu, and almost exclusively in Chennai. The term is a direct borrowing from colonial English — a "ground" was a standard residential plot allocation in Madras city layouts. The British Madras Presidency set it at 2,400 sq ft for urban residential grants. Today, Chennai real estate is quoted in grounds and cents. 1 ground ≈ 5.5 cents.

Ankanam

1 ankanam = 72 sq ft

Used in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Ankanam comes from Telugu and means a small courtyard or inner yard. It is the smallest named traditional unit in South India. Mainly used in older municipal records and by traditional brokers in smaller towns.

North & Central India Units

Kanal

1 kanal = 5,445 sq ft | 8 kanals = 1 acre

Used in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir. The exact origin of kanal is uncertain, but Punjab's agricultural land was historically laid out around canal irrigation networks — the most likely reason a land unit took on the name. Each irrigated strip became a kanal of land.

Kanal is the most important land unit in Punjab. Major land deals in Chandigarh, Mohali, and Ludhiana are quoted per kanal.

Marla

1 marla = 272.25 sq ft | 20 marlas = 1 kanal | 160 marlas = 1 acre

Used in Punjab, Haryana, and Jammu & Kashmir alongside kanal. The origin of marla is uncertain — it may derive from an older Persian or regional term for a small measure, but no definitive etymology is documented. What is well-documented: in British Punjab, 1 marla was standardised as a square of 1 rod × 1 rod (16.5 ft × 16.5 ft = 272.25 sq ft). Urban plots in Lahore, Amritsar, and Chandigarh are still routinely quoted in marlas. A "10 marla house" in Mohali = 2,722.5 sq ft of plot area.

Biswa

1 biswa = 1,350 sq ft | 20 biswas = 1 bigha (UP)

Used in Uttar Pradesh. Biswa comes from Hindi bis (twenty) — it is literally one-twentieth of a bigha. The biswa is subdivided further into 20 biswansis for very small parcels. Used mainly in rural Uttar Pradesh for agricultural fragmentation records.

Bigha (UP)

1 bigha (UP) = 27,000 sq ft ≈ 0.62 acres

The standard bigha of Uttar Pradesh, used across the Hindi heartland states. See the full bigha section below.

The Bigha Family — One Name, Six Sizes

Bigha is the most widely used traditional land unit in India, and the most confusing. The word derives from Sanskrit vigraha (division or portion) — a land parcel that is separated off. Every state that uses bigha defines it differently because there was never a national standard.

A farmer migrating from Bihar to Bengal would find that their "1 bigha" farm back home was twice the size of a "1 bigha" plot offered to them in Bengal. This variability has caused real legal disputes in land inheritance cases where the will specifies bighas without naming the state standard.

East India Units

Katha (Bengal / Assam)

1 katha (Bengal) = 720 sq ft | 20 kathas = 1 bigha (Bengal)

Katha (Bihar)

1 katha (Bihar) = 1,361.25 sq ft | 20 kathas = 1 bigha (Bihar)

Katha comes from Sanskrit kattha — a measuring stick or rod. It is the standard sub-bigha unit across Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Assam. The same size gap that exists between Bengal bigha and Bihar bigha exists between their kathas too. Kolkata real estate is quoted in kathas and bighas. A "3 katha plot" in Kolkata = 2,160 sq ft.

Chatak

1 chatak = 45 sq ft | 16 chataks = 1 katha (Bengal)

Used in West Bengal. The smallest traditional land unit in East India. Chatak shares its name with the chatak bird (the pied cuckoo, known for crying for rainwater) — though the connection to the unit is folk etymology and not established. In practice, chataks appear in very old property documents in rural Bengal for garden plots and homesteads.

Quick Reference: All Units by Size

5 Things Most People Get Wrong About Land Measurements

1. Cent and dismil are the same size. People in Bengal assume cent (a South Indian term) must be a different unit. It is not — both equal 1/100th of an acre.

2. Gaj is not exactly the same as the modern yard everywhere. The Mughal ilahi gaz was 33 inches; the imperial yard is 36 inches. In most modern Indian land records, gaj = 1 square yard = 9 sq ft — but older property documents in some regions used the shorter gaz.

3. Bigha has no national size. Never state a bigha measurement without specifying the state. A Bihar bigha is nearly double a Bengal bigha.

4. Guntas and marlas are not the same. They are both sub-acre units but different sizes: 1 gunta = 1,089 sq ft (south/west), 1 marla = 272.25 sq ft (north). 4 marlas ≈ 1 gunta.

5. Hectare is rarely used in Indian property transactions. Despite metrication, no Indian state's everyday property market quotes in hectares. It appears in government records, satellite surveys, and forest department data — not in broker listings.