How Many Square Meters Is One Mu of Land? A Detailed Explanation of Land Area Conversion Methods

Mu is a Chinese municipal unit of land area, and one mu equals sixty square zhang. Sixty square zhang was chosen because of ancient Chinese counting methods. Most counting today uses ten as a unit for carrying over, while ancient carrying over mostly used 60 as a unit, such as one jiazi being 60 years, etc. Now let us take a look together at how many square meters one mu of land is!

How many square meters is one mu of land?

One mu of land is about 666.67 square meters. The square meter is the metric unit of area, defined as the area of a square with a side length of 1 meter. In everyday life, the square meter is usually abbreviated as square meters or square, while in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, China it is called square meter. Under the well-field system, one hundred paces made a mu (one pace wide and one hundred paces long). During the Shang Yang Reforms in the State of Qin, the well-field system was abolished, and 240 paces were made one mu. When Qin annexed the six states, Han inherited the Qin system, and large and small mu were used in parallel. By the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, the number of paces per mu was unified, with 240 paces uniformly made one mu and promoted throughout the country. After that, one mu was 240 paces wide, and there was no change until the late Qing Dynasty.

How many fen is one mu of land?

One mu of land equals ten fen. Fen is a commonly used unit of area in rural areas, such as one mu and three fen of land. The unit smaller than fen is li. One mu equals ten fen, and one fen equals ten li. One mu of land equals 666.67 square meters, one fen of land equals 66.667 square meters, and one li of land equals 6.6667 square meters.

Tips for calculating mu and square meters

1. Converting square meters to mu: The mnemonic for converting square meters to mu is “add half and shift left three places.” For example, how many mu is 128 square meters? The calculation method is to first add half of 128 to 128, that is, 128+64=192, and then move the decimal point three places to the left, giving the number of mu for 128 square meters as 0.192.

2. Converting mu to square meters: The mnemonic for converting mu to square meters is “divide by three, double, and shift right three places.” For example, to calculate how many square meters 24.6 mu equals, the calculation method is 24.6÷3=8.2, and after doubling 8.2 it becomes 16.4, then move the decimal point three places to the right, giving the number of square meters as 16400.

Note: China stipulates three land area units: square kilometer (km2), hectare (hm2), and square meter (m2). The use of mu and are (a) should be avoided. The symbol for hectare is hm2, and the use of ha is not recommended in China.