Convert Square Kilometer (km²) to Arpent (arpent (area)) instantly.
About these units
Square Kilometer (km²)
A square kilometer equals one million square meters and is the standard unit for expressing large land areas, especially in geography, ecology, national planning, and environmental science. Countries, cities, national parks, forests, wetlands, and even ocean surface regions are frequently described in km². Because it provides a manageable scale for features too large for hectares or acres, it is widely used in atlases, scientific papers, and government reports. The square kilometer also plays a major role in ecology, where species ranges, habitat fragmentation, and conservation zones are measured using this unit. In geopolitics, km² help define national borders and territorial claims, making it a powerful instrument of scientific and political discourse.
Arpent (arpent (area))
The arpent is a historical French land-measurement unit whose exact value varied across regions but is commonly taken as about 0.34 hectares, or roughly 3,400 square meters. The arpent was widely used in France before the metric system and carried over into French colonial territories, especially Louisiana, Quebec, and the Caribbean. In North America, the arpent became intertwined with colonial land grants, settlement patterns, and agricultural design. Properties in Louisiana often follow long, narrow "ribbon farms" extending from riverbanks, measured in arpents of frontage width. This arrangement maximized river access for transportation and irrigation, producing a unique landscape still visible today. Because of its regional variation, historians and land-survey experts must interpret arpents within local context. In Louisiana, an arpent is typically standardized to 0.84628 acres for legal purposes, but French historical documents may use values closer to half a hectare. The arpent thus reflects not only agricultural needs but also the administrative and cultural imprint of French colonization on North American geography.