hectare

hectare — noun

1. You use this unit to measure the size of land. One hectare equals 10,000 square

1.nounB1
Definition

You use this unit to measure the size of land. One hectare equals 10,000 square metres.

Example

The Watanabe family bought a three-hectare farm outside Osaka last spring.

collocation: [number]-hectare as adjective before noun

Wildfires destroyed over two hundred hectares of forest in southern France.

collocation: hectares of [land type]

Common collocations
  • hectare of land
  • hectare of forest
  • per hectare
  • hectares of farmland
Synonyms
  • acre

    Mainly used in the US and UK; 1 hectare ≈ 2.47 acres

  • square kilometer

    Larger unit; 1 km² = 100 hectares

Grammar Patterns

number + hectare + of + noun

Usage Note

Hectare is mainly used for farmland, forest, and large properties. In Taiwan, the equivalent unit 公頃 (gōngqǐng) is common in real estate and agriculture.

Common Mistakes

The garden is 2 hectares wide.
The garden covers 2 hectares.
Hectares measure total area, not width or length.
The lake is 5 hectares long.
The lake has an area of 5 hectares.
Use 'area of' or 'covers' with hectares, not dimensions.

Word family

  • hectares
    nounB1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Hectare, acre, and square kilometer all measure land area. A hectare (10,000 m²) is the standard metric unit used globally for farmland, forests, and property. An acre (about 4,047 m²) is roughly 40% of a hectare and remains the primary land unit in the United States and the United Kingdom. A square kilometer (1,000,000 m²) equals 100 hectares and is used for very large areas such as cities or national parks. For example, a vineyard might cover 50 hectares; a suburban plot in Texas might be 0.2 acres; and a nature reserve could span 300 square kilometers.

hectare ↗acre ↗square kilometer

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • per hectare
  • hectares of

Prepositions

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

From French hectare (1795), formed by combining Greek hekaton (ἑκατόν, 'hundred') with Latin area ('open space'). The hecto- prefix signals 100 ares, where one are equals 100 square metres. The term was adopted as part of the metric system during the French Revolution.