Acre to Hectare Converter

One acre is 0.404686 hectares, and one hectare is 2.471054 acres. To convert acres to hectares, multiply by 0.404686; to go the other way, multiply by 2.471054. Both figures are exact consequences of the definitions below, so they hold to as many decimals as you need.

Where the factor comes from

A hectare is defined as 10,000 square metres — a square 100 m on each side. An acre is defined as 4,046.8564224 m² exactly (it is 1 chain by 1 furlong, or 4,840 square yards, and the yard has been exactly 0.9144 m since 1959). Dividing one by the other gives 4,046.8564224 ÷ 10,000 = 0.4046856 ha per acre.

Worked examples

• A 40-acre farm block: 40 × 0.404686 = 16.19 hectares.
• A 2.5-acre building plot: 2.5 × 0.404686 = 1.01 hectares — near enough one hectare, which is a useful anchor.
• A 150-acre estate: 150 × 0.404686 = 60.70 hectares.

Getting a feel for the sizes

A hectare is about two and a half acres. For a mental picture: a full-size football pitch is close to 0.7 ha (1.75 acres), and an international rugby pitch is almost exactly 1 ha. An acre was originally the area a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, which is why it is the awkward number of the two.

Common mistakes

• Multiplying when you should divide. Hectares are bigger, so the number of hectares is always smaller than the number of acres. If your answer grew, you used the wrong factor.
• Using 0.4 as the factor. It is quick and fine for a rough idea, but on 150 acres it is off by more than a full hectare.
• Confusing hectares with square kilometres. There are 100 hectares in a km², not 1,000.

One acre is 0.40469 hectares — call it "two-fifths of a hectare". Farm sales, planning applications and agricultural subsidies switch between the two depending on country (US/UK/India/Pakistan use acres; the EU and most of the world use hectares).

Where you'll meet this conversion

• A 100-acre farm is 40.5 ha.
• A 5 ha vineyard is 12.4 acres.
• Central Park's 843 acres ≈ 341 ha.

Common mistake

Flipping the factor: multiply acres by 0.4047 to get hectares, by 2.471 to go the other way. If your hectares came out bigger than your acres, it is the wrong direction.

Quick answer: one acre equals 0.404686 hectares. So to convert acres to hectares, multiply by 0.40468564.

How to convert acres to hectares

hectares = acres × 0.4046856422

The acre — historically the area a yoke of oxen could plow in one day — equals 43,560 square feet and remains the standard US unit for land parcels.

The hectare is a 100 m × 100 m square (10,000 m²), the metric unit of farmland and forestry worldwide. One hectare is about 2.47 acres.

Acre to Hectare conversion table

Need the opposite direction? Use the Hectare to Acre converter, or read our complete guide to area conversions for every formula in one place.