Convert Kanal to acres

A unit built out of the acre

The kanal is not an indigenous area unit that was later measured; it was defined during colonial settlement as one-eighth of an acre, which is where 5,445 square feet comes from. Because the acre is exactly defined against the metre, the kanal inherits an exact metric value rather than an approximate one, and the whole ladder above and below it — marla, kanal, acre, murabba — is internally consistent.

That consistency is why housing authorities across Punjab still lay out schemes in kanal and marla. A 10-marla plot, a 1-kanal plot and a 2-kanal plot are not rough categories; they are exact fractions of an acre, and the boundaries close on the survey.

The Lahore marla and the older marla

One complication persists. Older records in parts of Punjab use a marla of 25 square yards (225 sq ft) rather than 30.25 square yards (272.25 sq ft), giving a kanal of 4,500 sq ft instead of 5,445. Development authority schemes generally use the larger, acre-derived marla; some municipal and older private records use the smaller one.

The practical test is the plot dimensions rather than the label. A nominal 5-marla plot advertised at 25 by 45 feet is 1,125 sq ft and therefore uses the 225 sq ft marla; the same nominal plot at 30 by 45 feet is using the 272.25 sq ft marla. Buyers should measure or read the site plan before accepting a per-marla price.

How plots are actually priced

Pricing in this market is quoted per marla for residential land and per kanal for larger or agricultural parcels, with corner, main-road and park-facing plots carrying explicit percentage premiums on top of the base per-marla rate. Because the unit is exact, the per-marla rate is directly comparable between schemes in a way that per-bigha rates never are between districts.

For financing and valuation the figure usually has to be restated in square feet or square metres. Converting once from the plot dimensions, rather than from the nominal marla count, avoids inheriting whichever marla the advertisement assumed.

Larger units in the same family

Above the kanal sit the acre (8 kanal) and the murabba or square (25 acres) used in canal-colony agricultural land. Below the marla, the sarsahi (one-ninth of a marla, 9 sq ft under the 272.25 convention) still appears in revenue records for strips and rights-of-way.

When reading an old jamabandi, expect areas expressed as kanal-marla-sarsahi triples, in that order, exactly as feet and inches would be written. Misreading the triple as a decimal is a routine transcription error in digitised records.

One practical consequence of the acre-derived ladder is that agricultural holdings convert cleanly between systems. A 25-acre murabba is exactly 200 kanal and exactly 4,000 marla, so canal-colony allotment records, which were laid out on the murabba grid, can be reconciled against modern metric cadastral data without accumulating rounding error. That is not true of most traditional land units, and it is why Punjab land records digitised comparatively smoothly.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Two marla definitions circulate: 272.25 sq ft (acre-derived, used by development authorities) and 225 sq ft (older records).
• Check plot dimensions on the site plan before accepting a per-marla price.
• Kanal-marla-sarsahi triples in revenue records are not decimals.
• A "1 kanal house" describes plot area, not covered area — the built floor area is a separate figure.