Kanal to Marla to Acre Conversion Guide with Free Tables
| Quick answer: 1 kanal = 20 marlas = 0.125 acre. 1 acre = 8 kanals = 160 marlas. 1 marla = 272.25 square feet = 25.29 square meters. 1 hectare = 19.77 kanals = 395.4 marlas = 2.471 acres. |
Buy a plot in Lahore and the dealer talks in marlas. Open your fard and the land is recorded in kanals. Then you pick up a bag of urea and the recommendation on the back is per acre. Same field, three different units.
That gap is where money leaks. Convert kanal to marlas to acre wrongly and you either overspend on fertilizer or starve the crop, and a mismatched figure on a government form can send your file back to the counter.
So here is the whole system in one place: the exact numbers, four conversion tables, worked farm examples in kanals and marlas, the regional catch that trips up older land records, and the fastest way to measure an odd-shaped field yourself.
The figures in this guide follow the standard revenue measure used in Punjab land records, where one marla equals 30.25 square yards and one kanal equals 605 square yards. If you want the arithmetic done for you, our land area converter handles kanal, marla, acre, hectare, and square feet in one screen.
Kanal to Marla to Acre at a Glance
Learn this one line and every other conversion falls out of it:
1 acre = 8 kanals = 160 marlas
Everything else is multiplication or division. Twenty marlas make a kanal, eight kanals make an acre, and a hectare is a little under two and a half acres.
| Unit | Equals |
| 1 marla | 272.25 sq ft, 25.29 sq m, 0.05 kanal, 0.00625 acre |
| 1 kanal | 20 marlas, 5,445 sq ft, 505.86 sq m, 0.125 acre |
| 1 acre | 8 kanals, 160 marlas, 43,560 sq ft, 4,047 sq m |
| 1 hectare | 19.77 kanals, 395.4 marlas, 2.471 acres, 10,000 sq m |
What Is a Kanal?
A kanal is a traditional unit of land area used across Punjab in both Pakistan and India, and also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir. One kanal equals 20 marlas, or 505.86 square meters, or 5,445 square feet.
Eight kanals make one acre, so a kanal is exactly one eighth of an acre. If it helps to picture it, a kanal is roughly the footprint of a large village house with its courtyard and animal shed.
Kanals still dominate revenue paperwork. Your mutation, your inheritance split, your sale deed: all of them are written in kanals and marlas, not acres.
What Is a Marla?
A marla is the smallest unit in common use in this system. One marla equals 272.25 square feet, or 25.29 square meters, or 30.25 square yards. Twenty marlas make a kanal and 160 marlas make an acre.
Urban property is almost always priced by the marla. A 5 marla house sits on about 1,361 square feet of land, a 10 marla plot on about 2,722 square feet, and a 1 kanal plot on about 5,445 square feet.
Farmers meet the marla mostly in the leftover. Land records rarely land on a round kanal figure, so you see entries like 7 kanals 13 marlas. Those stray marlas matter once you start costing inputs with a crop cost of production calculator.
Complete Kanal, Marla, Acre, and Hectare Conversion Tables
Bookmark this section. These four tables answer almost every land conversion question that comes up in a season.
Kanal Conversion Table
| From | To |
| 1 kanal | 20 marlas |
| 1 kanal | 505.86 square meters |
| 1 kanal | 5,445 square feet |
| 1 kanal | 605 square yards |
| 1 kanal | 0.125 acre |
| 1 kanal | 0.0506 hectare |
| 8 kanals | 1 acre |
| 19.77 kanals | 1 hectare |
Marla Conversion Table
| From | To |
| 1 marla | 272.25 square feet |
| 1 marla | 25.29 square meters |
| 1 marla | 30.25 square yards |
| 1 marla | 0.05 kanal |
| 1 marla | 0.00625 acre |
| 20 marlas | 1 kanal |
| 160 marlas | 1 acre |
| 395.4 marlas | 1 hectare |
Acre Conversion Table
| From | To |
| 1 acre | 8 kanals |
| 1 acre | 160 marlas |
| 1 acre | 4,047 square meters |
| 1 acre | 43,560 square feet |
| 1 acre | 0.4047 hectare |
| 2.471 acres | 1 hectare |
Hectare Conversion Table
| From | To |
| 1 hectare | 2.471 acres |
| 1 hectare | 19.77 kanals |
| 1 hectare | 395.4 marlas |
| 1 hectare | 10,000 square meters |
| 1 hectare | 107,639 square feet |
Handy shortcuts worth memorizing: to go from marlas to acres, divide by 160. To go from kanals to acres, divide by 8. To go from kanals to hectares, divide by 19.77. Everything on the soil and land calculators page uses exactly these ratios.
Worked Examples Every Farmer Runs Into
Numbers on their own rarely stick. These are the three calculations that come up most often in a Punjab cropping year.
Example 1: Urea for a Field of 3 Kanals 10 Marlas
Your recommendation is 50 kg of urea per acre. Start by putting everything into marlas, because mixed units are where mistakes happen.
- 3 kanals equals 60 marlas, plus 10 marlas, so 70 marlas in total.
- 70 marlas divided by 160 marlas per acre equals 0.4375 acre.
- 0.4375 multiplied by 50 kg equals 21.9 kg, so round to 22 kg of urea.
Splitting that into two doses? A urea application rate calculator will size each split by growth stage, and a DAP fertilizer calculator does the same for your basal phosphorus dose.
Example 2: Wheat Seed for 5 Kanals
The seed rate is 50 kg per acre and your field is 5 kanals.
- 5 kanals divided by 8 kanals per acre equals 0.625 acre.
- 0.625 multiplied by 50 kg equals 31.25 kg of seed.
Buy 32 kg and you have a small margin for gaps and replanting. If you want the rate adjusted for germination percentage and row spacing rather than a flat book figure, the seed rate calculator and the plant population density calculator are the two tools to use.
Example 3: Converting 12 Kanals to Hectares for a Government Form
Subsidy and development forms usually ask for hectares, while your record shows kanals.
- 12 kanals divided by 19.77 kanals per hectare equals 0.607 hectare.
- Write 0.61 hectare and keep the kanal figure in the remarks column so the two match.
Before you file, check what the area actually earns you with an agriculture subsidy calculator, since most schemes cap support per hectare.
Regional Variations in Kanal and Marla Size
Here is the part most conversion pages skip. The kanal is not identical everywhere.
In Pakistan, and in most of the Indian states that use the unit, the standard applies: 1 marla equals 30.25 square yards and 1 kanal equals 605 square yards. That is the basis of every table above.
But in parts of Indian Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh, older records used a smaller marla of 25 square yards, which makes the kanal 500 square yards or 4,500 square feet. Same words, roughly 17 percent less land. If you are reading a decades-old record or buying in an area with traditional measurements, confirm the local standard with the patwari or the land records office before you sign anything.
One rule settles every dispute: the legally binding area is the one written in your official record, the fard in Pakistan or the khatauni in India. Tape measures and phone apps are for planning, not for proof.
How to Measure Your Field in Kanals and Marlas
For a rectangular field, you need nothing more than a measuring tape and a calculator.
- Measure the length and the width of the field in feet.
- Multiply length by width to get the area in square feet.
- Divide that area by 272.25 to get the area in marlas.
- Divide the marlas by 20 to get kanals. Whatever is left over is your extra marlas.
Worked example: a field 330 feet long and 165 feet wide covers 54,450 square feet. Divide by 272.25, and you get 200 marlas. Divide 200 by 20, and you get exactly 10 kanals.
Once you know the area, the same number drives your water planning. A flood irrigation water calculator converts field size into the volume each irrigation needs, and a canal water measurement calculator tells you whether your warabandi turn actually delivers it.
Measuring an Odd Shaped Field
Very few real fields are neat rectangles. Two approaches work well.
- Split the field into rectangles and triangles on paper, measure each piece, and add the areas together. Triangle area is half of base multiplied by height.
- Walk the boundary with a GPS area app on your phone. Accuracy of two to three meters is normal, which is fine for planning inputs and useless for a boundary dispute.
Apps and Tools That Support Kanal and Marla
- GPS Fields Area Measure: measures by walking or tapping the boundary on a satellite map, with acres and hectares built in.
- Land Area Calculator for Android: includes South Asian units such as marla, kanal, bigha, and guntha.
- PLRA app and portal: the Punjab Land Records Authority service where Pakistani owners view registered area in official units.
- Online converters: our land area converter works on a phone browser with no install, and sits alongside the full set of farming calculators for seed, water, and fertilizer maths.
Four Conversion Mistakes That Cost Real Money
Every one of these turns up in the field, and everyone is avoidable.
- Treating a kanal as a fifth of an acre. It is one eighth. That single slip inflates a fertilizer order by more than half.
- Dropping the leftover marlas. On 12 kanals 15 marlas, ignoring those 15 marlas underestimates the field by nearly a tenth, and the shortfall shows up as pale patches at tillering.
- Mixing gross and cultivated area. Watercourses, bunds, and the tubewell platform sit inside your recorded kanals but grow nothing. Measure the sown area for input planning and use the record for paperwork.
- Applying a per-acre recommendation to a per-kanal field without converting at all. Multiply by 0.125 first, then compare the result against your expected return with the crop yield estimator and the farm budget planner.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many kanals are in 1 acre in Pakistan?
Exactly 8 kanals. This ratio is fixed across Pakistan and in the Indian states that follow the standard measure, so 1 acre is also 160 marlas.
How many marlas are in 1 kanal?
20 marlas. Working the other way, 1 marla is 0.05 kanal, so a 10 marla plot is half a kanal.
How many square feet are 1 marla?
272.25 square feet, which is the same as 30.25 square yards or 25.29 square meters. A 5 marla plot is therefore about 1,361 square feet.
How many kanals are in 1 hectare?
19.77 kanals, which also equals 395.4 marlas or 2.471 acres. For quick mental maths, treat a hectare as roughly 20 kanals.
How do I convert marla to acre?
Divide the number of marlas by 160. For example, 40 marlas divided by 160 gives 0.25 acre, and 240 marlas gives 1.5 acres.
Which is bigger, a kanal or a marla?
A kanal is bigger, by a factor of 20. In this system, the marla is the small unit, the kanal is the middle unit, and the acre is the large one.
Is kanal used in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?
Kanal is mainly a Punjab unit. Sindh works in acres, and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa you meet both kanals and local units such as the karam, though acres and hectares are now more common in official use.
Is 1 marla always 272.25 square feet?
Not in every district. Some older records in Indian Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh use a 25 square yard marla of 225 square feet. Check the standard on your own record before converting.
What is 1 kanal in square meters?
505.86 square metres, usually rounded to 506 in official conversions. That is a little over one twentieth of a hectare.
Key Takeaways
- 1 acre = 8 kanals = 160 marlas. This is the anchor for every other conversion.
- 1 kanal = 20 marlas = 5,445 square feet = 505.86 square meters.
- 1 marla = 272.25 square feet = 25.29 square meters.
- 1 hectare = 19.77 kanals = 395.4 marlas = 2.471 acres.
- Convert to acres for any input decision, since Pakistani and Indian recommendations are issued per acre.
- Convert to hectares for official forms, and trust your fard or khatauni over any measurement you take yourself.
Final Thoughts
Kanal to marla to acre conversion looks fiddly until you hold on to one relationship: 1 acre equals 8 kanals equals 160 marlas. From there, urea rates, seed quantities, irrigation volumes, and subsidy forms all fall into line.
Do the conversion once at the start of the season, write the acre figure on the inside cover of your farm notebook, and every input decision afterwards gets faster. Run your own numbers now with the land area converter, then plan the season with the crop water requirement calculator and the NPK fertilizer dosage calculator.