Convert km² to ha square kilometres ↔ hectares Free Online Secure
Type a value in square kilometres and read it in hectares at once. The factor is exact by definition, the arithmetic happens in your browser, and nothing is sent anywhere.
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Common values — Convert km² to ha (square kilometres ↔ hectares)
| km² | ha |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 200 |
| 3 | 300 |
| 5 | 500 |
| 10 | 1000 |
| 20 | 2000 |
| 50 | 5000 |
| 100 | 10000 |
Where these units come from
Square units need no definition of their own: a square metre is a metre by a metre, and everything follows from the length. The land measures are older and stranger. The acre began as the land a yoke of oxen could plough in a day, which is why it was long and thin rather than square — one chain by one furlong, 4840 square yards. The hectare and the are came out of the French Revolution, when land had to be measured in something decimal; neither belongs to the International System, but both were kept for land because a hectare is a comfortable size to picture and a square metre is not. Since the 1959 agreement on the yard, the acre is exactly 4046.8564224 square metres, so the conversions on this page are exact rather than approximate.
Where you meet them
Square metres price flats, size carpets and decide how much paint a wall needs; square feet do the same work in the United States and in much of the property market worldwide. Hectares belong to farmland, forests and planning permissions; acres to land deeds in the English-speaking world. Square kilometres and square miles are for countries, lakes and fires. Square centimetres and square millimetres live in workshops, on datasheets and anywhere a cross-section matters.
Questions people ask
How big is a square kilometre?
A square one kilometre on each side, which is 100 hectares or 1,000,000 square metres. Central Park in New York covers about 3.4 square kilometres, and the whole of Monaco about 2. It is the natural unit for countries, lakes, forests and cities, where the figures in square metres would run to many digits.
How big is a hectare, really?
A hectare is a square of 100 m by 100 m, which is 10,000 square metres or about 2.47 acres. A full-size football pitch, touchline to touchline, is roughly 0.7 of a hectare, so a hectare is a pitch and a half. The are, now rarely used on its own, is a hundredth of that: 100 square metres, a square ten metres on a side.
Is the answer exact?
Where both units are defined in terms of one another by whole numbers, yes — the page says so above the figure, and the only rounding is in how many digits are shown. Where the ratio has no finite decimal, the page shows twelve significant digits and says the relation is approximate rather than pretending otherwise.
Does anything I type leave my device?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no server to upload it to. Load the page once and it keeps working with the network switched off.
Ten times ten hectometres: turning a map area into hectares
On a map or in an encyclopaedia, large areas are given in square kilometres: Wales has 20,779, Scotland 77,933, a national park 6,100. Farmers, foresters and conservation managers, on the other hand, plan in hectares, and subsidies, quotas and land registers use that unit as well. To convert km² to ha you multiply by 100, since a square kilometre holds exactly 100 hectares. So 6,100 km² is 610,000 ha and 0.35 km² is 35 ha. This page multiplies as you type, and the text below shows where the conversion matters, from the Everglades to the training grounds of an army.
You will find the rule with worked examples, short profiles of both units, a comparison, a long tour of real situations and a list of the mistakes people make most often. The calculation runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How to convert km² to ha: multiply by 100
The rule
One square kilometre equals exactly 100 hectares. To convert km² to ha, multiply the square kilometres by 100, which means moving the decimal point two places to the right. So 3 km² is 300 ha, 25.5 km² is 2,550 ha and 130,279 km² is 13,027,900 ha. To go back, divide hectares by 100.
Worked examples
The Everglades National Park has 6,106 km², which is 610,600 ha. Banff National Park has 6,641 km², 664,100 ha. Salisbury Plain, a British army training area, has about 390 km², 39,000 ha. If the number of square kilometres has decimals, move the point as usual: 0.17 km² is 17 ha.
Why it is two places, not one
A kilometre has ten hectometres, a hectometre is 100 metres, and a hectare is a square hectometre. A square kilometre is therefore ten by ten hectares, a hundred in all. The factor is the square of ten, not ten itself.
A quick check
The hectare is the smaller unit, so the number grows by two digits. If your “convert km² to ha” calculation produced a number with only one extra digit, you used the length factor.
The square kilometre
One thousand metres on a side
The square kilometre is the area of a square 1,000 metres by 1,000 metres, a million square metres, 100 hectares or 0.386 square miles. It is the unit of countries, counties, large lakes and city areas, and the basis of population density in people per square kilometre.
Where you find it
Atlases, encyclopaedias, news stories, government statistics and geography textbooks.
The hectare
Ten thousand square metres
The hectare is the area of a square of 100 by 100 metres. The name was coined in France in 1795, and the unit is accepted for use with the SI as the standard for land. A hectare is about 2.47 acres, or a little more than a football pitch and a half.
Where you find it
Farm records, forest inventories, nature reserve plans, building plots and planning documents in most countries.
Square kilometre and hectare compared
A square kilometre holds a hundred hectares. The two units suit different scales, and the best choice keeps the number between 1 and 1,000. For a farm, hectares work better; for a county, square kilometres. The factor, 100, is a pure shift of the decimal point, with no rounding.
The danger is in labelling. A table that mixes both units invites errors, so state the unit with each number, and if you must mix, add a note that one square kilometre is 100 hectares.
Where the conversion appears
The countries of the United Kingdom
England covers 130,279 km², which is 13.03 million hectares. Scotland covers 77,933 km², 7.79 million ha, Wales 20,779 km², 2.08 million ha, and Northern Ireland 14,130 km², 1.41 million ha. British farm statistics use hectares, while geography books use square kilometres, so a “convert km² to ha” calculation appears in most reports.
Great wetlands
The Everglades National Park covers 6,106 km², 610,600 ha. The Pantanal in South America is much bigger, about 150,000 km², 15 million ha. The Okavango Delta covers 15,000 km², 1.5 million ha. Conservation bodies publish hectares, and encyclopaedias square kilometres.
Military and training land
Salisbury Plain Training Area covers about 390 km², 39,000 ha, the largest in Britain. The Grafenwoehr training area in Germany spans 233 km², 23,300 ha. Land holdings of armed forces are described in hectares in budgets and in square kilometres on maps.
Lakes in hectares
Lake Baikal has 31,722 km², 3.17 million ha. The Great Salt Lake covers about 4,400 km², 440,000 ha, though its area varies with rainfall. The Dead Sea has 605 km², 60,500 ha, and it is shrinking every year. Water authorities often work in hectares for small reservoirs and square kilometres for large lakes.
Scotland's land
Scotland has about 7.8 million ha. Around 2.5 million ha, 25,000 km², are hill land and rough grazing. The Cairngorms National Park covers 4,528 km², 452,800 ha. Land reform debates in Scotland quote the area in hectares, while geography books use square kilometres. A “convert km² to ha” calculation puts the two together.
Coral, seagrass and marine habitats
Seagrass meadows cover an estimated 300,000 km² worldwide, 30 million ha. Mangrove forests cover about 147,000 km², 14.7 million ha. Marine conservation reports use hectares for sites and square kilometres for global totals, so the numbers often come in different units on the same page.
Urban areas and city limits
Tokyo's metropolitan area covers about 13,500 km², 1.35 million ha. New York City proper has 784 km², 78,400 ha. London's Greater London area is 1,572 km², 157,200 ha. City planners use square kilometres for city limits and hectares for neighbourhoods, so conversion crosses the border between citywide and local plans.
Peat bogs and carbon stores
Peatlands cover about 4 million km² worldwide, 400 million ha, and store twice as much carbon as the world's forests. Ireland has about 14,000 km² of bog, 1.4 million ha. Restoration targets are in hectares, while maps show square kilometres, so a “convert km² to ha” calculation appears in many climate documents.
Rounding
The factor 100 is exact. Give hectares with the same precision as the source: 6,106 km² is 610,600 ha. If the source says about 6,100 km², write about 610,000 ha. Do not add digits that the measurement does not support.
Spreadsheet use
Write square kilometres in column A and =A2*100 in column B. For the reverse, use =B2/100. Add a total row, and compare with the figure for the whole region, to check that no row was entered in the wrong unit.
Teaching the idea
Draw a square on the board with a side of 1 km, split it into a grid of ten by ten, and label each small square one hectare. Students count 100 squares, and the factor is clear. Then ask them to colour the part of the grid covered by a school, a lake or a farm.
Cities and their districts
A district of 12 km², 1,200 ha, within a city of 300 km², 30,000 ha, makes 4 per cent of the area. City governments publish district areas in hectares and city totals in square kilometres, which is why the share is easiest to calculate after conversion to a single unit.
Flooding and drought
A flood that covers 150 km² has inundated 15,000 ha. A drought that affects 2,000 km² hits 200,000 ha of farmland. Emergency agencies report hectares of crops lost, while meteorological services report square kilometres affected, so a “convert km² to ha” calculation links the two.
River deltas and fertile plains
The Mekong Delta covers about 40,500 km², 4.05 million ha, and grows half of Vietnam's rice. The Nile Delta has about 25,000 km², 2.5 million ha, home to nearly 40 million people. Delta farmland is measured in hectares in national statistics and in square kilometres on atlas maps. A “convert km² to ha” calculation lets a reader compare two deltas in one unit.
The great national parks of North America
Banff National Park has 6,641 km², 664,100 ha. Yellowstone has 8,983 km², 898,300 ha. Yosemite covers 3,027 km², 302,700 ha. Park services publish both units, but a news story may give only one, and the other has to be calculated when you compare two parks.
Reservoirs behind great dams
The reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam in China covers about 1,084 km², 108,400 ha. Lake Mead in the United States has about 640 km², 64,000 ha when full. Lake Volta in Ghana has 8,500 km², 850,000 ha. Dam operators give reservoir areas in hectares for planning and in square kilometres in press releases, so both units circulate.
Rainforests and boreal forests
The Amazon rainforest covers about 5.5 million km², 550 million ha. The Congo Basin forest spans some 3.7 million km², 370 million ha. The Russian taiga is roughly 12 million km², 1.2 billion ha. Researchers who track forest loss use hectares per year, while the reference areas are given in square kilometres, so a “convert km² to ha” calculation appears in most analyses.
Entertainment complexes and artificial islands
Disneyland Paris covers about 22.3 km², 2,230 ha, of which the theme parks occupy a small part. The Palm Jumeirah in Dubai has 5.6 km², 560 ha. A large shopping and leisure district of 1 km², 100 ha, is already a small town. Developers give hectares in contracts and square kilometres in their promotional material.
City states and special regions
Hong Kong has 1,114 km², 111,400 ha, of which only a quarter is built up. Macau has 33 km², 3,300 ha. Gibraltar has 6.8 km², 680 ha. Such places are so small that hectares give a better picture than square kilometres, yet most encyclopaedias list them in the larger unit.
Polders and reclaimed land
The Dutch polders of Flevoland cover roughly 1,400 km² of land, 140,000 ha, reclaimed from the sea in the twentieth century. The Wash in eastern England has had about 600 km², 60,000 ha, of land taken from the water over centuries. Water boards talk about hectares for management and square kilometres for history.
Antarctica and the polar regions
Antarctica covers about 14.2 million km², 1.42 billion ha, and Greenland 2.17 million km², 217 million ha. The Arctic sea ice minimum in recent years has been around 4 million km², 400 million ha. Climate researchers use square kilometres, and a conversion to hectares is rare, but it makes the scale tangible for readers who think in terms of land.
Planning for change over time
Land cover changes each year, and analysts track it in both units. If a country loses 0.5 per cent of its forest, on a base of 30,000 km², that is 150 km², 15,000 ha, per year. Present such a figure in the unit your audience uses, and add the other in brackets: 150 km² (15,000 ha). A “convert km² to ha” calculation done once, then kept in a table, serves all later reports and prevents mismatched figures.
A last sanity check
Before using the result, ask whether it seems plausible: a country cannot have a million hectares in a space of 5 km².
Cropland of big producers
Brazil plants about 40 million ha of soybeans, 400,000 km². Indonesia has some 16 million ha of oil palm, 160,000 km². India grows cotton on 12 million ha, 120,000 km². Agricultural trade data are in hectares, while maps show the same regions in square kilometres, and a “convert km² to ha” calculation links the two.
American states
Rhode Island has 3,144 km², 314,400 ha. Iowa has 145,746 km², 14.6 million ha, of which about 12 million ha are farmland. Texas has 695,662 km², 69.6 million ha. When agricultural economists compare states, they usually quote farmland in hectares or acres and the state area in square kilometres or square miles.
Canada's forests
Canada's forests cover about 3.47 million km², which is 347 million ha. That is roughly 9 per cent of the world's forest area. Forestry statistics from Natural Resources Canada use hectares, while maps and school atlases use square kilometres.
Gardens and palace grounds
The estate of Versailles covers 8 km², 800 ha, of which the gardens take about 100 ha, 1 km². The Vatican Gardens cover 0.23 km², 23 ha. Heritage bodies give grounds in hectares, while tourist leaflets prefer square kilometres or just compare with football pitches.
Green belts around cities
London's Green Belt covers about 5,129 km², 512,900 ha, protected from development. Paris has the Île de France green belt of 1,200 km², 120,000 ha, and Berlin's Brandenburg region has far more. Planning documents quote hectares, while the maps in guidebooks use square kilometres.
Deserts and drylands
The Sahara covers about 9.2 million km², 920 million ha. The Gobi is 1.3 million km², 130 million ha. The Negev is 12,000 km², 1.2 million ha. Desert area is given in square kilometres in geography texts, and in hectares when agencies talk about land restoration or irrigation.
Rice, wheat and maize belts
The US maize belt has about 35 million ha under maize, 350,000 km². The wheat area of Russia is about 28 million ha, 280,000 km². China plants 30 million ha of rice, 300,000 km². Hectares are the standard in agricultural reports, while maps use square kilometres, so conversion is routine in this field.
More values for convert km² to ha
A longer list of conversions
If the value you need is not in the first list, these further conversions may be close enough to read off directly:
- 0.1 km² = 10 ha
- 0.5 km² = 50 ha
- 3 km² = 300 ha
- 4 km² = 400 ha
- 7 km² = 700 ha
- 15 km² = 1,500 ha
- 20 km² = 2,000 ha
- 75 km² = 7,500 ha
- 200 km² = 20,000 ha
- 500 km² = 50,000 ha
- 2,000 km² = 200,000 ha
- 10,000 km² = 1,000,000 ha
Mistakes when you convert km² to ha
Multiplying by 10
That is the linear factor. For area, multiply by 100.
Dividing instead of multiplying
The hectare is smaller, so the number grows. If 5 km² became 0.05, you divided.
Mixing with square metres
A square kilometre is a million square metres. The 100 is only the number of hectares.
Quick answers
How many hectares in a square kilometre?
100.
How do I convert km² to ha?
Multiply by 100.
What is 25 km² in hectares?
2,500 ha.
How do I go from ha to km²?
Divide by 100.
Does my number leave my device?
No. The calculation runs in your browser.
Related pages and a last word
If you work with land and area, these conversions are close at hand: Convert km² to m², Convert km² to mi², Convert acres to ha, Convert m² to ha, Convert ha to acres, Convert km to mi, Convert mi to km, Convert °C to °F, Convert °F to °C. The reverse of this page is Convert ha to km².
In short, to convert km² to ha multiply by 100, remember that a hectare is 10,000 m² and a square kilometre a million, and keep the digits your source supports. Your number stays on your device: nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.