Guntha, cent, bigha and acre: land units explained
Indian land is sold in units that change from one state to the next, and a mistake of one unit is a mistake of lakhs of rupees. This guide says what each unit measures, how they all hang off the acre, and where people go wrong. Updated 21 October 2026.
Everything hangs off the acre
The numbers look random until you see that most Indian land units are simply fractions of an acre or of a square yard. One acre is 43,560 square feet, which is 4,840 square yards or about 4,046.86 square metres. Learn that one figure and the rest can be worked out on paper:
- A guntha is 1/40 of an acre.
- A cent is 1/100 of an acre.
- A kanal is 1/8 of an acre, and a marla is 1/20 of a kanal.
- A ground is a flat 2,400 square feet.
- A hectare is 10,000 square metres, about 2.47 acres.
The one that does not fit this pattern is the bigha, which comes later because it needs its own warning.
The units side by side
| Unit | Square feet | Square yards | Square metres | Of an acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guntha | 1,089 | 121 | 101.17 | 1/40 |
| Cent | 435.6 | 48.4 | 40.47 | 1/100 |
| Ground | 2,400 | 266.67 | 222.97 | 0.0551 |
| Kanal | 5,445 | 605 | 505.86 | 1/8 |
| Marla | 272.25 | 30.25 | 25.29 | 1/160 |
From the table, 1 guntha = 2.5 cent exactly, because 40 guntha and 100 cent are both one acre (100 divided by 40). A 1,089 square foot guntha is also 33 feet by 33 feet, which is an easy way to picture it on the ground.
Where each unit is used
Guntha is the record unit in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Cent turns up in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and in parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Ground belongs mostly to Chennai. Marla and kanal are Punjab and Haryana units. Bigha is used across much of the north and east, and in Gujarat.
This is only a guide to what you are likely to meet. Two villages in the same district can quote the same plot in different units, so always ask which one a figure is in before you compare prices.
Worked examples
A 30 by 40 foot plot. That is 1,200 square feet. Divide by 435.6 and it is 2.75 cent. Divide by 1,089 and it is 1.10 guntha.
12 guntha. Multiply by 1,089 and it is 13,068 square feet. Multiply by 2.5 and it is 30 cent. The two answers agree, because 30 cent is also 30 × 435.6 = 13,068 square feet.
A price per cent. If a plot is quoted at ₹4,50,000 per cent, that is about ₹1,033 per square foot (450,000 divided by 435.6), and ₹11,25,000 per guntha (4,50,000 × 2.5). Turning a quote into a price per square foot is the quickest way to compare two plots that were quoted in different units.
The land record that says “2.20”
In states that record land in acres and guntha, an area is often written with a point or a dash between the two parts: 2.20 or 2-20 means 2 acres and 20 guntha, not 2.2 acres. Because 20 guntha is half an acre, that plot is 2.5 acres, or 250 cent, or 108,900 square feet.
Read it as the decimal 2.2 and you get 95,832 square feet, which is 13,068 square feet short, a whole 12 guntha. Whenever a record shows two parts separated by a point, ask which unit sits after the point before you do any arithmetic.
Bigha is the one to be careful with
A bigha has no single size. It differs from state to state and sometimes from district to district. Three sizes that are commonly quoted are 1,600, 2,400 and 2,700 square yards:
| 1 bigha of this size | Square feet | Cent | Guntha |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,600 sq yd | 14,400 | 33.06 | 13.22 |
| 2,400 sq yd | 21,600 | 49.59 | 19.83 |
| 2,700 sq yd | 24,300 | 55.79 | 22.31 |
So “how many cent is one bigha” has no honest one-number answer: it is about 33 cent under the smallest definition and about 56 under the largest. Before any bigha figure touches money, find the size your own district records use, and read it from the document rather than from the seller.
A checklist before you agree to a price
- Write down the unit used in the sale deed or land record, and the unit the seller is quoting. They are often different.
- Turn both into square feet. Square feet is the one unit everybody can check on a tape measure.
- Check the area in the record against the area actually measured. A licensed surveyor can settle a dispute that two converters cannot.
- Compare plots by price per square foot, not by the price of the whole plot or by the price per local unit.
- Confirm the final figures with the sub-registrar’s office or a lawyer before you pay an advance.
The arithmetic on this page is exact, but a guide cannot know your state’s rules, or what your particular document says. Treat it as a way to check the numbers you are given, not as the final word on them.
Convert your own figures
The Area Converter shows one area in every unit at once, including the three bigha sizes above, so you can read the same plot as square feet, cent, guntha and acre side by side. It runs in your browser, so nothing you type is uploaded.