Comments on: How big is a hectare?

By: Martin Vlietstra

Martin Vlietstra — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:56:17 +0000

If you look up “Hectare” in Wikipedia, you will see a “New Zealand Rules” rugby field.

By: Navod

Navod — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:35:05 +0000

Can you also put a picture of an Australian rules football ground?

By: Michael Glass

Michael Glass — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:33:46 +0000

Here’s my rough and ready way of working out how big a hectare is:

1 I walk briskly for one minute. In that time I will have walked about 100 metres. The square of that 100 metres is a hectare.

2 I count 125 steps at a brisk walking pace. The distance will be about 100 metres. The square of that 100 metres is a hectare.

3 As a check, I walk briskly for a minute, counting the number of steps. The count comes out between 120 and 130 steps. I got an equivalent reading (75 cm per step) when I set a pedometer.

In this way I can make rough calculations of areas.

By: Naud

Naud — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 08:36:00 +0000

I thought a football field is always 100m by 50m.

By: Just Checking

Just Checking — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:10:32 +0000

Was reading this and surely there’s an error on the calculations about football? 64 m x 100 m is 6,400 sq m ie 0.64 hectare, and 75 x 110 is 0.825 hectare

By: John Steele

John Steele — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:38:33 +0000

Martin,
I don’t know if it is worth updating this old thread, but I was looking at how big is a baseball field, and would like to offer some observations/corrections:
*I agree the most common shape for fair territory is a square, with a corner lopped off as you have drawn. The range of dimensions is correct for “all parks,” but new parks, built after 1958 must have foul lines greater than 99 m and center field, 122 m. This shape and the minimum dimensions result in an area of 9483 m²

*The shape need not involve right angles at the foul posts. The true minimum shape is the straight lines connecting these dimensions, but approximating the arc to which these lines are chords results in a longer “power alley.” Thus the angle of the fence to foul line may be acute, right, or obtuse. This leads to about ±10% variation from shape, with no change in dimensions (but what you show is most common)

*Like the rugby field, there is some “extra territory” which should be considered. If an opposing player catches a foul fly, batter is out. A 60′ (18.3 m) swath of foul territory is recommended from first base to home plate, to third base. In the outfield, this can narrow to nearly the foul poles. Adding this brings the minimum field size to about 11860 m², and the maximum size area to about 13720 m².
Perhaps 1.2 – 1.4 ha would be a better statement. (And for a given foul line and center field dimension, 10% from shape is still possible).

For my own judgement of a hectare, I note that 6 lots in my subdivision taken together are just over 0.9 ha. It takes me 45 minutes to mow my lawn. Running back and forth on six such lots for an hour or two, playing a game, would surely kill me.

By: Gil Ben-Ari

Gil Ben-Ari — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:46:44 +0000

I think that JC has answered his own question!

1 Acre is 4840Sq Yds what sort of measurement is that? neither here nor there,

1 Chain??? what type of chain an Anchor chain, bicycle chain, 22yds, why not 20yds or 25 yds. and so forth.

I lived in the middle east for 36 years, from the age of 23 (born and raised in the UK) but the Metric System simplified life immensely.

By: Biddy

Biddy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:31:43 +0000

Why all the silly chatter about sports fields? Is it a man thing? 100m x 100m is all I needed to know.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:27:43 +0000

Wow. I grew up in Britain and the math I did was largely the 240 pennies to the pound kind. What nutter came up with that? Metric is far simpler and makes more sense … I can’t believe the number of people who are delighted to learn that a litre of water weighs a kilo, 500mL weights 500g, 125mL weighs 125g, etc.

By: Colin Nicholson

Colin Nicholson — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:25:52 +0000

Who needs to visualise an area of land anyway? If you are a farmer or surveyor you will soon learn to do it, anyone else can look it up on Google and measure it, or use a GPS and pace round it.

We are buying a house in Portugal, and had to convert the stated area in square metres into acres in order to be able to compare its value with that of land in the UK, which everyone I know values by the acre. We were surprised to discover from our Brazilian friends that they use acres as well, and on investigation so do many other countries, including Portugal. Seems the British established the units as they surveyed the World and it stuck.

Why we are in such a mad rush to convert to metric units that are impossible to visualise when we had units of measurement that related to quantities we are familiar with in bodily scale I don’t know – I know exactly how big a 6ftx4ft window is, but in millimetres? Give me a break! And when it comes to pressure, forget it. The other huge benefit of non-metric units is that it teaches people to calculate in different bases than 10, so their maths becomes much better. It is only engineers that like everything to be so neat and tidy, to suit their obsessive temperement.

[Mr Nicholson illustrates very well the refusal of some people to learn anything new or different or to adapt to the modern world. "Mad rush"? after 43 years?! - Ed]