Dunam

Dunam
A dunam (Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount of land that could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a day. The legal definition was "forty standard paces in length and breadth", but its actual area varied considerably from place to place, from a little more than in Ottoman Palestine to around in Iraq.
The unit is still in use in many areas previously ruled by the Ottomans, although the new or metric dunam has been redefined as exactly one decare, which is 1/10 hectare (1/10 × ), like the modern Greek royal stremma.
History
The name dönüm, from the Ottoman Turkish dönmek ("to turn"), appears to be a calque of the Byzantine Greek stremma and had the same size. It was likely adopted by the Ottomans from the Byzantines in Mysia-Bithynia.
The Dictionary of Modern Greek defines the old Ottoman stremma as approximately , but Costas Lapavitsas used the value of for the region of Naoussa in the early 20th century.
Definition
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro
In Bosnia and Herzegovina and also Serbia, the unit is called dulum (дулум) or dunum (дунум). In Bosnia and Herzegovina dunum (or dulum) equals . One dulum is equal to for the region of Leskovac, south Serbia. In Albania it is called dynym or dylym. It is equal to .
Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, the decare (декар) is used, which is an SI unit, literally meaning 10 ares.
Cyprus
In Cyprus, a donum is or 14400 square feet. In the Republic of Cyprus older Greek-Cypriots also still refer to the donum using the local Greek Cypriot dialect word σκάλες [skales], rather than the mainland Greek word stremma (equivalent to a decare). However, since 1986 officially Cyprus uses the square metre and the hectare.
A donum consists of 4 evleks, each of which consists of or 3.600 square feet.
Greece
In Greece, the old dönüm is called a "Turkish stremma", while today, a stremma or "royal stremma" is exactly one decare, like the metric dönüm.
Iraq
In Iraq, the dunam is .
Levant and Turkey
In the Levant and Turkey, the dunam is , which is 1 decare. From the Ottoman period and through the early years of the British Mandate for Palestine, the size of a dunam was , but in 1928, the metric dunam of was adopted, and this is still used.
United Arab Emirates
The Dubai Statistics Center and Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi use the metric dunam (spelt as donum) for data relating to agricultural land use. One donum equals .
Variations
Other countries using a dunam of some size include Libya and Syria.
Conversions
A metric dunam is equal to:
1,000 square metres (exactly)
10 ares (exactly)
1 decare (exactly)
0.1 hectares (exactly)
0.001 square kilometres (exactly)
0.247105381 acres (approx)
1,195.99005 square yards (approx)
10,763.9104 square feet (approx)
Comparable measures
The Byzantine Greek stremma was the probable source of the Turkish unit. The zeugarion (Turkish çift) was a similar unit derived from the area plowed by a team of oxen in a day. The English acre was originally similar to both units in principle, although it developed separately.
See also
Orders of magnitude (area) for further comparisons
Conversion of units
Feddan, a similar non-SI unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan, and Syria.
Resm-i donum, a land tax based on the area of a farm.
References
External links
Foreign Weights and Measures Formerly in Common Use
Dictionary of units
Variable donums in Turkey
Summary based on UN handbook
Units of area
Turkish words and phrases
Metricated units