The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. Its international symbol is ac.
The most commonly used acres today are the international acre. In the United States both the international acre and the slightly different US survey acre are in use. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land. One international acre is equal to 4046.8564224 square metres.
During the Middle Ages, an acre was the amount of land that could be plowed in one day with a yoke of oxen.
Read more about Acre: Description, Difference in Measurement, South Asia, Equivalence To Other Units of Area, Historical Origin, Other Acres
Famous quotes containing the word acre:
“... a family I know ... bought an acre in the country on which to build a house. For many years, while they lacked the money to build, they visited the site regularly and picnicked on a knoll, the site’s most attractive feature. They liked so much to visualize themselves as always there, that when they finally built they put the house on the knoll. But then the knoll was gone. Somehow they had not realized they would destroy it and lose it by supplanting it with themselves.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Only by himself, with one acre and a house, will a dunce be a dunce. Once he manages to gain power, he’ll turn into a scoundrel.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)