Murabba, Bigha and Killa to Acre Converter

1 murabba is 25 acres. In the canal colony villages of Punjab each acre is also called a killa, so 1 murabba is 25 killa. On the revenue scale that is 200 kanal, 4,000 marla, 1,089,000 sq ft or about 10.12 hectares.

Half a murabba is 12.5 acres and 3 murabba are 75 acres. The converter keeps the revenue marla of 272.25 sq ft selected, because farm land is recorded on that scale.

For smaller holdings recorded in bigha, choose bigha in the "From" box. In Punjab's revenue units 1 bigha is 4 kanal, half an acre, but older records also use a pakka and a kacha bigha, so pick the size your record uses.

Murabba, killa and acre

In square metres, a murabba is 101,171 m² and an acre is 4,046.86 m².

Why a murabba is 25 acres

Murabba means square. When the British laid out the canal colonies of west Punjab in the late 19th century, land was surveyed into large blocks called squares, each divided into killas.

The first plan: 27.78 acres

The early squares were 1,100 ft by 1,100 ft, which is 200 × 200 karam at 5.5 ft to the karam. That square holds 27.78 acres, and each killa of 220 × 220 ft was 1 1/9 acres.

The later plan: exactly 25 acres

Later surveys changed the squares to rectangles of 1,100 ft × 990 ft, which is exactly 25 acres. Each killa became 220 ft × 198 ft (40 × 36 karam), exactly one acre. This is the murabba of 25 acres used today.

If you hold old land papers from an early colony, a "square" there may be the larger 27.78 acre block. Check the area written in the record.

Worked example: 3.5 murabba

A family holds 3.5 murabba of canal land.

1. Acres: 3.5 × 25 = 87.5 acres (87.5 killa)
2. Kanal: 87.5 × 8 = 700 kanal
3. Marla: 700 × 20 = 14,000 marla
4. Hectares: 87.5 × 0.4047 = 35.41 ha

If this land is split equally between four family members, each gets 21.875 acres, which is 21 acres 7 kanal.

Killa to acre

In Punjab's canal colony areas, a killa and an acre are the same size: 43,560 sq ft, or 8 kanal. So 10 killa is 10 acres and 80 kanal. Only the old square plan killa of 220 × 220 ft was larger, at 1.11 acres.

In Sindh, acre plots laid out around the Sukkur Barrage measured 264 ft north to south and 165 ft east to west. That is still 43,560 sq ft, one acre in a different shape. For smaller areas, see kanal to acre and kanal to marla.

Bigha to acre

Every bigha is divided into 20 biswa. A Punjab biswa is 1,089 sq ft (4 marla), a pakka biswa 1,361.25 sq ft and a kacha biswa 453.75 sq ft.

Where each bigha comes from

In the Punjab chain, 1 bigha = 4 kanal = 20 biswa = 80 marla, and 2 bigha make an acre (killa). The Ambala District Gazetteer of 1883-84 describes a pakka bigha of 3,025 sq yd used in government records and a kacha bigha of one third of it, which in practice ran from about 850 to 1,000 sq yd. The Punjab Land Records Manual (Indian Punjab) lists district bighas that differ because the karam used to measure them ran from 57 to 66 inches. Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have no standard official bigha: ask the patwari or tapedar for its size in square feet and choose "Other size".

Worked example: 5 pakka bigha

An old mutation records 5 bigha on the pakka scale: 5 × 27,225 = 136,125 sq ft, which is 136,125 ÷ 43,560 = 3.125 acres or 136,125 ÷ 5,445 = 25 revenue kanal. As Punjab revenue bigha the same 5 bigha would be only 2.5 acres (20 kanal), 0.625 acre less, which is why the size must be confirmed before any sale.

For reference, the bigha is 14,400 sq ft in West Bengal and Assam and 8,712 sq ft in Himachal Pradesh. Type these in the "Other size" box to convert family records from across the border.

Crops from this land are still sold by the man (maund), which is 40 kg in Pakistan. Farmers who follow the Punjabi calendar for sowing can check the month with desi date today.

Murabba questions