An Indian land unit converter has to start with a question that most converters skip: where is the land? A bigha in Assam is 14,400 square feet. A pucca bigha in Uttar Pradesh is 27,225. A katha in West Bengal is 720 square feet, while a katha in Assam is 2,880 — four times larger. These are not competing estimates of one true value. They are genuinely different units that happen to share a name, fixed by local revenue practice and, in several states, by the revenue department's own manuals.
Arb Digital publishes a free tools library that is explicit about uncertainty rather than hiding it. This page therefore asks for a region before it converts anything, shows the square-foot value it is using for each unit, and lets you overwrite that value with whatever your own revenue record states. It complements the area converter, which handles SI and imperial area units and contains none of these regional measures, and the land area calculator, which works out an area from plot dimensions rather than converting one.
What This Indian Land Unit Converter Does
It converts through square feet. Your input is multiplied by the square feet in one unit of the source measure, and the result is divided by the square feet in one unit of the target measure. Both of those numbers are visible on screen and both are editable, so nothing is hidden inside the code.
The headline is your area expressed in the target unit. The four supporting boxes always show the same area in square feet, square metres, square yards — the gaj of everyday north Indian usage — and hectares, because those four are stable everywhere and are what appear on formal documents and government records.
Units that are constant nationally are always available: square feet, square metres, square yards or gaj at exactly 9 square feet, the acre at 43,560, the hectare at 10,000 square metres, the are at 100 square metres, the cent at one-hundredth of an acre, the guntha at one-fortieth of an acre and the ground at 2,400 square feet. The regional units — bigha, katha, biswa, dhur, lessa, chatak, marla and kanal — appear with the value attached to the region you selected.
How to Use It
- Select the region before anything else. Changing it after you have entered values silently changes the meaning of every regional unit on the page.
- Pick the source and target units. If a regional unit is not customarily used in the region you selected, it will not appear in the lists — that is deliberate, not a bug.
- Check the two square-foot fields. They tell you exactly what definition the conversion is using. If either does not match your document, overwrite it.
- Read the four standard units. For anything legal or financial, the square-metre and hectare figures are the ones that appear in formal records.
- Record which definition you used. "3 bigha" means nothing on its own. "3 bigha at the Assam value of 14,400 sq ft" is a statement someone else can check.
The Formula / How It's Calculated
One line: result = value × square feet per source unit ÷ square feet per target unit. Everything else on the page is a lookup that fills those two numbers.
Worked example with the values the page loads with. Five katha under the Bihar definition, where one katha is 1,361.25 square feet: 5 × 1,361.25 = 6,806.25 square feet. Divided by 43,560 square feet per acre, that is 0.1563 acres. In the supporting boxes it is 632.32 square metres (6,806.25 ÷ 10.7639104), 756.25 square yards (÷ 9) and 0.0632 hectares.
Change the region to West Bengal and the same five katha becomes 5 × 720 = 3,600 square feet, or 0.0826 acres — 47% less land for an identical description. That single comparison is the reason this page exists.
Which Units Vary, and by How Much
This is the part that catches people, so it is worth stating unit by unit.
Bigha varies most. Assam and West Bengal use 14,400 square feet. The pucca bigha of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan is 27,225 square feet — a square of 165 feet a side — but a kachha bigha in the same states is smaller, often a third or a fifth of the pucca value depending on local practice. That is close to a twofold range for the same word.
Katha is a subdivision of the bigha and inherits its variation. West Bengal divides a bigha into 20 katha, giving 720 square feet. Assam divides it into 5, giving 2,880. Bihar's katha of 1,361.25 square feet is a twentieth of the pucca bigha. All three are correct in their own state.
Marla and kanal split by convention rather than by state alone. The traditional revenue value derived from the karam gives a marla of 272.25 square feet and a kanal of 20 marla, or 5,445 square feet. A widely used urban convention rounds the marla to 225 square feet and the kanal to 4,500. Both are in active use, sometimes in the same city, which is why they appear here as separate regional options rather than as one value.
Biswa, dhur, lessa and chatak are all subdivisions and all follow whatever their parent unit does locally.
What does not vary: the acre, the hectare, the are, the square metre, the square foot, the gaj at 9 square feet, the cent at 435.6 square feet, the guntha at 1,089 square feet and the ground at 2,400 square feet. Those are the units to use whenever a figure has to survive being read by someone in another state.
Where the Regional Values Come From
The values in this tool are the ones documented in state revenue practice, and any figure that matters should be checked against the source for the specific district. State revenue departments publish the definitions they administer: the Government of Punjab's revenue department hosts Chapter 9 of the Punjab Land Records Manual covering measurement practice, and Bihar's land records portal publishes a Bihar Revenue Glossary of the terms used in its own records. Other states publish equivalent mensuration manuals for their surveyors.
Alongside those, the metric system is the legal standard for measurement, and land records increasingly carry hectares and square metres as the authoritative figure with traditional units shown for familiarity. The metric framework itself — including the fact that the hectare is defined as 10,000 square metres — is documented in the National Institute of Standards and Technology's SI Units, and its table of metric prefixes reference, which sets out the base and derived units used internationally.
Two practical consequences. First, when a sale deed, mutation record or property tax demand states an area, the metric figure on the document governs, and a traditional unit quoted beside it is a convenience. Second, if a local figure differs from the value this tool fills in, the local figure is the one to use — that is precisely what the editable square-foot fields are for.
Why "One Bigha in India" Has No Answer
Search results confidently state a single number for a bigha, and every one of them has quietly picked a state. The units predate national standardisation and were fixed by local revenue administration, often derived from the area a pair of oxen could plough in a day or from a rod length that itself varied between districts. The karam that generates the marla, for instance, has had several regional lengths.
Consolidation of land records has not erased this. Metric figures are recorded, but transactions, family divisions and everyday conversation still run in the local unit, and the local unit still means what it locally means. Village-level variation within a single district is documented in several states.
The practical rule for anyone dealing with land across state lines: convert to square metres or hectares at the point of measurement, carry that figure, and convert back to a traditional unit only for local conversation. The rectangle area calculator is useful for turning plot dimensions into an area in the first place, and the cost per square foot calculator converts a price quoted per bigha or katha into a comparable rate once you have the square footage.
Arb Digital builds calculators and content that stand up to scrutiny — sourced, precise about method, and fast enough to rank. Browse the free library, or tell us what you need.
Browse Free Tools Talk to Arb DigitalCommon Mistakes to Avoid
- Using a single national value for bigha or katha — a katha ranges from 720 to 2,880 square feet depending on the state, and no one figure is authoritative.
- Changing the region after entering values — the numbers stay on screen while their meaning changes underneath them.
- Confusing pucca and kachha bigha — in the same state these can differ by a factor of three or more, and documents do not always say which is meant.
- Assuming marla is always 272.25 square feet — the 225 square foot urban convention is in wide use, sometimes within the same city as the traditional value.
- Carrying a traditional unit across state lines — convert to square metres or hectares for anything that leaves the district, and convert back only for local conversation.
Related Free Tools From Arb Digital
The area converter covers SI and imperial area units, the land area calculator works out an area from plot dimensions, and the rectangle area calculator handles simple rectangular plots. Use the cost per square foot calculator to compare prices once areas are in the same unit, and the unit converter for general SI work. Everything else is in the free online tools hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends entirely on the state. Assam and West Bengal use 14,400 square feet, while the pucca bigha of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan is 27,225 square feet. A kachha bigha in those same states is smaller again. There is no national value, which is why this tool asks for a region first.
Because a katha is a subdivision of the local bigha and states divide the bigha differently. West Bengal uses 20 katha to a bigha, giving 720 square feet. Bihar's katha is 1,361.25 square feet, and Assam divides its bigha into five katha of 2,880 square feet each.
Both values are in active use. The traditional revenue marla derived from the karam is 272.25 square feet, with 20 marla to a kanal of 5,445 square feet. A widely used urban convention rounds the marla to 225 square feet and the kanal to 4,500. Check which one your document follows.
The acre at 43,560 square feet, the hectare at 10,000 square metres, the are at 100 square metres, the square metre, the square foot, the gaj at 9 square feet, the cent at 435.6 square feet, the guntha at 1,089 square feet and the ground at 2,400 square feet. Bigha, katha, biswa, dhur, lessa, chatak, marla and kanal all vary regionally.
Yes, and you should if your revenue record states a different one. Both square-foot fields are editable, and the conversion uses whatever they contain. Local usage varies even within a district, so the figure printed on your own document takes precedence over any default here.
Pucca means the full standard measure administered by the revenue department, and kachha a smaller customary measure used locally. The ratio between them is not fixed nationally and can be a third or a fifth depending on the area, so a document that says only "bigha" is genuinely ambiguous.
The metric figure recorded on the document. Land records carry hectares and square metres as the authoritative measurement, with traditional units shown alongside for familiarity. For anything legal, work from the recorded metric area and treat a traditional unit as a description.
This tool converts units of measurement using the regional definitions you select. It is not legal, property or valuation advice, and no land transaction should rely on it — verify any area against the figure recorded by the relevant revenue department or a qualified surveyor.
The state figures above are taken from published revenue-department sources, including Chapter 9 of the Punjab Land Records Manual and the Bihar Revenue Glossary. Because these units are defined locally and have been revised over time, confirm the factor with your own district or tehsil revenue office before relying on it for a transaction.
