Square meter

The square meter is the SI-derived unit of area. It has a symbol m² (33A1 in Unicode). It is defined as the area of a square whose sides measure exactly one meter. The square meter is derived from the SI base unit of the meter, which in turn is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in absolute vacuum during a time interval of  of a second.

Adding SI prefixes creates multiples and submultiples. However, as the unit is squared, the order of magnitude difference between units doubles from their comparable linear units.  For example, a kilometer is one thousand times the length of a meter, but a square kilometer is one million times the area of a square meter since the unit of  is defined the same way as  with the only difference being that the sides of the squares measure 1 km each. Thus 1  has two sides each measuring 1000 meters which you multiply by each other to get the area of 1 000 000 .

A "square meter" and "meter squared" both refer to the unit of  since to square refers to raising to the power of 2. 

For example, a square that is 2 meters long and 2 meters wide has 4 square meters of area.

But a square that is 4 by 4 meters has 16 square meters of area.

 SI prefixes applied to the square meter 
The square meter may be used with all SI prefixes used with the meter.

 Multiple         Name        Symbol Multiple         Name        Symbol100 square meter (centiare)m²100 square meter (centiare)m²102 square decameter (are)  dam²10−2 square decimeter  dm²104 square hectometer (hectare) hm² 10−4 square centimeter cm²106 square kilometer km²10−6 square millimeter mm²1012 square megameter Mm²10−12 square micrometer µm²1018 square gigameter Gm²10−18 square nanometer nm²1024 square terameter   Tm²10−24 square picometer pm²1030 square petameter Pm²10−30 square femtometer fm²1036 square exameter Em²10−36 square attometer am²1042 square zettameter Zm²10−42 square zeptometer zm²1048 square yottameter Ym²10−48 square yoctometer ym²

Conversions

A square meter is equal to:
 0.000 001 square kilometer (km²)
 10,000 square centimeters (cm²)
 0.000 1 hectares (ha)
 0.01 ares (a)
 1 centiare (ca)
 0.000 247 105 381 acres
 1.195 990 square yards
 10.763 911 square feet
 1,550.003 1 square inches

Related pages
SI
SI prefix
1 E0 m²Conversion of units
Orders of magnitude

 Notes 

 Other websites 
BIPM (SI maintenance agency)  (home page)
BIPM brochure (SI reference)

Category:Units of area
Category:SI derived units