The square metre ( international spelling as used by the

International Bureau of Weights and Measures The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry ...

) or square meter ( American spelling) is the unit of

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an ope ...

in the International System of Units (SI) with symbol m². It is the area of a

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

with sides one

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...

in length. Adding and subtracting SI prefixes creates multiples and submultiples; however, as the unit is

exponentiate Exponentiation is a mathematical operation, written as , involving two numbers, the '' base'' and the ''exponent'' or ''power'' , and pronounced as " (raised) to the (power of) ". When is a positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to re ...

d, the quantities grow exponentially by the corresponding

power of 10 A power of 10 is any of the integer powers of the number ten; in other words, ten multiplied by itself a certain number of times (when the power is a positive integer). By definition, the number one is a power (the zeroth power) of ten. The f ...

. For example, 1 kilometre is 10³ (one

thousand 1000 or one thousand is the natural number following 999 and preceding 1001. In most English-speaking countries, it can be written with or without a comma or sometimes a period separating the thousands digit: 1,000. A group of one thousand th ...

) times the length of 1 metre, but 1 square kilometre is (10³)² (10⁶, one million) times the area of 1 square metre, and 1 cubic kilometre is (10³)³ (10⁹, one

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...

) cubic metres.

SI prefixes applied

The square metre may be used with all SI prefixes used with the metre.

Unicode characters

Unicode has several characters used to represent metric area units, but these are for compatibility with East Asian character encodings and are meant to be used in new documents. * * * * * Instead, the Unicode superscript can be used, as in m².

Conversions

One square metre is equal to: * square kilometre (km²) * square centimetres (cm²) *

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

s (ha) * decares (daa) * ares (a) * deciares (da) * centiare (ca) * acres * cents * square yards *

square feet The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bang ...

square inch A square inch (plural: square inches) is a unit of area, equal to the area of a square with sides of one inch. The following symbols are used to denote square inches: *square in *sq inches, sq inch, sq in *inches/-2, inch/-2, in/-2 *inches^2, inc ...

Examples

* One square meter can stand up to 5 people at the same time.

Notes

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External links