Convert Square Foot (US Survey) (ft² (US)) to Homestead (homestead) instantly.
About these units
Square Foot (US Survey) (ft² (US))
The US survey square foot is defined using the US survey foot and differs minutely from the international square foot. While the difference is negligible in everyday contexts, in land surveying even tiny discrepancies matter because property boundaries, right-of-way extents, and engineering alignments may accumulate errors over long distances. Surveyors and civil engineers must interpret historical documents using survey-based values to ensure legal consistency with old plats, deeds, and boundary descriptions.
Homestead (homestead)
A homestead is not a strictly fixed area unit but historically referred to land parcels granted under the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862, typically 160 acres, or 1/4 of a section. These homesteads were offered to settlers willing to cultivate and improve the land. The 160-acre parcel was chosen to be large enough to sustain a family farm in many regions, though this proved inadequate in drier western areas. While no longer an official area unit, "homestead" is deeply embedded in American cultural memory and historical land-use patterns. In legal and historical contexts, it often implicitly means a quarter-section, preserving its measurement-like nature.