This US survey foot to meter converter handles the units that land records and survey plans are actually written in — the survey foot, the international foot, the chain, the link, the rod, the acre, the hectare and the vara. Pick a unit, type a value, and see the same quantity in every unit of that kind, or jump straight to the equivalent measurements. Every factor is exact as defined, and everything runs in your browser with no login and no upload.
Exact factors: the US survey foot is 1200 / 3937 m and the international foot is
exactly 0.3048 m. Area conversions use the international foot for ft²
and the survey foot for the US survey acre.
Enter a number to convert.
Length units are converted by scaling to a base unit of metres. A chain, for example, is defined
as 66 feet, so it is stored as 66 × 0.3048 = 20.1168 m, and a value in chains is
multiplied by that figure and then divided by the factor of the target unit. Area units are
defined directly in square metres: the acre is 43,560 ft² = 4046.8564224 m², the
hectare is exactly 10,000 m², and the square mile is 2,589,988.110336 m².
Because area is a squared quantity, the difference between the two feet is roughly twice as large
in area as in length — about four parts per million.
Angle units are converted through degrees: 1 radian = 57.295779513°, 1 grad or
gon = 0.9°, a NATO mil is 0.05625° and the older artillery mil is
0.06°. When you convert an angle, the tool also prints it in degrees, minutes and
seconds so you can copy it straight onto a plan.
The United States has had two feet. The international foot is defined as exactly
0.3048 metres, and the US survey foot is defined as
1200 / 3937 metres, which works out at 0.304800609601219 metres. The
survey foot is therefore longer by 0.0000006096 m — about two parts per million.
Two parts per million sounds harmless until it lands on a long line. Over 1,000 feet the gap is 0.002 feet, or about 0.6 mm. Over a statute mile it is 0.0106 feet, or about 3.2 mm. Across a state plane or a long parcel boundary the discrepancy becomes a real survey question rather than a rounding detail, which is why the two feet were kept separate for as long as they were.
The separation ended on 1 January 2023: the US survey foot was formally deprecated for new work, and the international foot is now the standard foot in the United States. In practice the survey foot has not disappeared — older State Plane coordinates, recorded plats, right-of-way documents and some state transportation plans are still written in survey feet, so a surveyor reading a 1990s record of survey today still needs the survey foot conversion. The rule to remember is simple: a foot in a legacy survey document is usually a survey foot, and a foot in a current drawing is an international foot. When a document does not say which one it used, treat that as a real risk and check the stated datum and units note.
To convert a US survey foot to meter, multiply by 1200 / 3937, or
0.304800609601219. So 100 US survey feet = 30.48006096 m and
10,000 US survey feet = 3,048.0609601 m — about 61 mm longer than the same figure read as
international feet.
To go the other way and convert meter to US survey foot, multiply by 3937 / 1200, or
divide by 0.304800609601219. One metre is 3.2808333333 US survey feet. The same
metre is 3.2808398950 international feet, so a 1,000 m baseline is 3,280.8333 survey feet but
3,280.8399 international feet — 0.0066 ft, roughly 2 mm, of difference that either matches the
record or does not.
If a conversion looks wrong, test it against a number you already know. A US survey mile is 5,280
survey feet, or exactly 1,609.3472187 m. A statute mile in international feet is
1,609.344 m. If your converted mile does not land on one of those two figures, you
have mixed the two feet somewhere in the chain of calculation.
Before electronic distance measurement, land was measured with a Gunter's chain 66 feet long, made of 100 links, with tallies every ten links. Those units are still embedded in the land system: a chain to feet conversion is 66 ft, a link to feet conversion is 0.66 ft, and a rod, pole or perch to feet conversion is 16.5 ft.
The numbers are not arbitrary. 66 feet divides cleanly into 4 rods of 16.5 feet, and 80 chains make exactly one statute mile, which is why the public land survey system laid out sections as 80-chain squares. Area followed from the same geometry: one square chain is 4,356 ft², exactly one tenth of an acre, and one acre is 10 square chains or 160 square rods. When you read an old metes-and-bounds description, the distances are as likely to be in chains and links as in feet, and converting them into feet or metres is the first step before anything can be plotted.
The surveyor's chain also gave us the acre itself: one acre is a rectangle one chain wide and ten chains long — 66 ft by 660 ft — which is why an acre is 43,560 ft² and why a furlong (660 ft) and an acre are historically the same measurement in different directions.
For acre to hectare, multiply by 0.40468564224: one acre is 0.4047 hectares.
For hectare to acre, multiply by 2.4710538147: one hectare is 2.4711 acres.
The hectare is exactly 10,000 m², so a square meter to acre conversion is simply
m² / 4046.8564224.
For square feet to acres, divide by 43,560. That single number is worth memorising, because it turns a footprint or a plat into acreage in one step: 100,000 ft² is 2.296 acres, and 20,000 ft² is 0.459 acres. Going the other way, one acre is 43,560 ft², which is a square 208.71 feet on a side, or a rectangle one chain by ten chains.
Two cautions matter here. First, the US survey acre — 43,560 survey feet squared — is 4,046.8726 m², slightly larger than the international acre of 4,046.8564 m². Historic deeds that state acreage derived from survey feet carry that slightly larger acre. Second, acreage read off a coordinate list is a projected area: over a large or steep parcel it differs from surface area, and it should be reported with the projection and units it was computed in.
Larger cadastral units follow the same ladder: 4 roods make an acre (a rood is 10,890 ft²), 640 acres make a section, and 36 sections make a township of 36 square miles — 23,040 acres.
A statute mile is 5,280 feet, or exactly 1,609.344 metres. A nautical mile is exactly 1,852 metres, about 6,076.115 international feet, which makes it roughly 1.1508 times a statute mile, or about 15 percent longer.
The reason is that the nautical mile is tied to the Earth rather than to a survey: one nautical mile is one minute of latitude, so 60 nautical miles equal one degree of latitude, and a degree of latitude is the same distance everywhere on the globe. A statute mile is a historical land measure with no geodetic meaning. That is why marine and aviation charts, and every speed in knots, use the nautical mile, while road distance, land parcels and everything in a survey plan use the statute mile. Converting between the two is a scale factor, not a projection problem — but the units of the speed matter just as much: one knot is one nautical mile per hour, about 1.852 km/h.
Spanish and Mexican land grants in Texas, California and the wider Southwest were measured in
varas, and those measurements are still part of the chain of title. The Texas vara is
33 1/3 inches, so a vara to feet conversion is 2.7778 feet, or 0.846667 metres.
The California vara is 33 inches, or 2.75 feet. A league, in land-grant usage, is 5,000 varas, and
a labor is 1,000,000 square varas.
The general rule with legacy units is never to convert blind. The vara varied by jurisdiction and by period, the Spanish foot and the Paris foot appear in early colonial documents, and a conversion done with the wrong local standard can shift a boundary by tens of metres. Where a legacy unit governs a boundary, the conversion factor belongs in the surveyor's record, with the authority it came from.
| Conversion | Exact value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 US survey foot to meter | 0.304800609601219 m | Exactly 1200 / 3937 |
| 1 meter to US survey foot | 3.2808333333 ftUS | Exactly 3937 / 1200 |
| 1 international foot | 0.3048 m | Exact; now the US standard foot |
| 1 chain | 66 ft = 20.1168 m | 100 links; 10 chains make a furlong |
| 1 link | 0.66 ft = 0.201168 m | One hundredth of a chain |
| 1 rod (pole, perch) | 16.5 ft = 5.0292 m | 4 rods to a chain |
| 1 furlong | 660 ft = 201.168 m | 10 chains; one eighth of a mile |
| 1 fathom | 6 ft = 1.8288 m | Depth and, historically, mining |
| 1 statute mile | 5,280 ft = 1,609.344 m | Land distance |
| 1 nautical mile | 1,852 m | One minute of latitude |
| 1 acre | 43,560 ft² = 4,046.8564224 m² | 0.40468564 ha; 10 square chains |
| 1 hectare | 10,000 m² = 2.4710538 acres | 100 m by 100 m |
| 1 rood | 10,890 ft² = 1,011.7141056 m² | One quarter of an acre |
| 1 section | 640 acres = 1 mi² | Public land survey system |
| 1 vara (Texas) | 33⅓ in = 0.846667 m | Spanish and Mexican grants |
Conversion factors marked exact are exact by definition. Values shown to ten significant figures are rounded for display only — the calculator uses full double precision.
Multiply the survey feet by 1200 and divide by 3937 — that is 0.304800609601219 metres per survey foot. So 100 US survey feet is 30.480061 m, and 1,000 US survey feet is 304.800610 m.
Multiply the metres by 3937 and divide by 1200, or divide by 0.304800609601219. One metre is 3.2808333333 US survey feet, against 3.2808398950 international feet.
Yes. The international foot is exactly 0.3048 m; the US survey foot is 1200/3937 m = 0.304800609601219 m, longer by about two parts per million. Over one mile that is roughly 3.2 mm.
It was deprecated for new work on 1 January 2023, and the international foot is now the standard US foot. Legacy records still use it — older State Plane coordinates, recorded plats, right-of-way and cadastral documents — so the conversion is still needed in daily practice.
A Gunter's chain is 66 ft, a link is 0.66 ft and a rod (pole or perch) is 16.5 ft. There are 100 links and 4 rods in a chain, and 80 chains in a statute mile.
One hectare is 2.4710538 acres. One acre is 0.40468564 ha, 4,046.8564224 m² or 43,560 ft². A US survey acre — 43,560 survey feet squared — is slightly larger, at 4,046.8726 m².
Exactly 43,560. To go from square feet to acres, divide by 43,560: 100,000 ft² is 2.296 acres. An acre is about 208.71 ft square, or a strip one chain (66 ft) wide and ten chains long.
A statute mile is 5,280 ft, or 1,609.344 m. A nautical mile is exactly 1,852 m, about 15 percent longer, and equals one minute of latitude. Marine and air navigation use the nautical mile; land measurement uses the statute mile.
The Texas vara is 33⅓ inches — 2.7778 ft or 0.846667 m. The California vara is 33 inches, or 2.75 ft. Because the vara varied by jurisdiction, always use the factor that belongs to the grant or record you are working from.
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