Convert square metres to Guntha

An exact traditional unit

Forty guntha make one acre, and the international acre has been defined against the metre since 1959. That makes the guntha exactly 4,046.8564224 / 40 = 101.17141056 m², or 1,089 ft² — a square of thirty-three feet. Very few traditional South Asian units have that property; the bigha family notably does not.

The thirty-three-foot side is not a coincidence. It descends from the surveyor's chain of sixty-six feet: a guntha is a quarter of a square chain, and the acre is ten square chains. The Deccan revenue survey adopted the chain system wholesale, which is why the region's traditional unit is arithmetically clean.

Where you will meet it

Agricultural 7/12 extracts (satbara utara) in Maharashtra state holdings in hectares and are, but the market quotes guntha, and so do most brokers, farm-plot advertisements and partition agreements. Around Pune, Nashik and Bengaluru, weekend-farm and plotted-development listings are priced almost exclusively per guntha.

Karnataka records also use guntha alongside the are and the hectare, and the state's Bhoomi land-record system prints both. Where a document gives hectares to two decimals and guntha as a whole number, the guntha figure is usually the rounded one.

Guntha, are and cent

The guntha (101.17 m²) and the are (100 m²) are close enough to be confused and far enough apart to matter: the difference is about 1.2%, which on a five-acre holding is roughly a quarter of a guntha. Revenue records that state "R" or "Are" columns are metric; a guntha column is not.

Southern states use the cent — one-hundredth of an acre, 40.47 m² — for the same job the guntha does in the Deccan. Two and a half cents make one guntha exactly, which is a useful bridge when a buyer from Chennai and a seller from Pune are looking at the same plot.

Practical cautions

Guntha figures in older Deccan records may be quoted against the Indian survey acre rather than the international acre. The two differ negligibly for most purposes, but on institutional or government transfers the deed should state which acre definition governs.

Non-agricultural conversion changes what a guntha is worth, not what it measures. Plots advertised in guntha with an NA (non-agricultural) order attached command different prices from identical areas without one, and no conversion tool can tell you which you are looking at — read the order.

Reading a Maharashtra 7/12 extract

The guntha appears on the 7/12 land extract used across Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka and Gujarat, where holdings are recorded as hectare-are or as acre-guntha depending on the vintage of the entry. Forty guntha make one acre, so a guntha is about 101.17 square metres, and the remainder after whole acres is what the guntha field carries.

Because 7/12 extracts are updated by mutation rather than re-survey, a single document can carry an old acre-guntha figure and a newer metric one that were derived independently. When they disagree slightly, the metric figure from the most recent survey governs for registration, but the guntha figure is what the local market quotes and prices against — record both rather than choosing one.

Common mistakes to avoid

• A guntha (101.17 m²) is not an are (100 m²); the 1.2% gap compounds across a large holding.
• Forty guntha make one acre — a "half acre" is twenty guntha, not twenty-five.
• Guntha appears on market listings while the legal record often states hectares and are; reconcile to the 7/12 or Bhoomi extract before contracting.

Questions people ask about the Guntha

How many guntha are in one acre?

Exactly forty. Because the acre is exactly defined in metres, the guntha is exact too: 101.17141056 m², or 1,089 ft².

Which Indian states use guntha?

Maharashtra and Karnataka principally, with usage extending into Gujarat and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Tamil Nadu and Kerala use the cent instead.

Is a guntha the same as an are?

No. An are is exactly 100 m²; a guntha is 101.17 m². Revenue extracts often print both columns, and mixing them understates a holding by about 1.2%.