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Pat et al:
In the US, a practical area for building lots is
about 10 000 sq feet for townhouses. That's about 10 m x 10 m x 10.
Also, 1 000 sq feet (about 10 m x 10 m) is a very useful value for living
space in an apartment or townhouse.
Therefore the term for 10 m x 10 m should be the
commonly used term for small parcels while all others should use square
kilometers for large areas such as farmland and areas for large development
purposes. In any case, square meters should be the base unit for land
records. Too many terms for intermediate values become
confusing.
For larger lots, whole numbers are very useful up
to one square kilometer. For example, an acre would be about 40 times that
of a townhouse living space and five acres would be five times that or 200
for a very large estate type house. Moreover, a townhouse lot size would
be ten times the area of living space or 10 x 10 m x 10 m. It's all
relative and useful for every day people to compare what they are buying or
planning to use.
So, let's keep it simple, useful and
relative.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 12:01
AM
Subject: [USMA:35544] Re: Area in
convenient units
Pat,
I think that they were originally a quarter of an
acre. One acre can be represented by a strip of land of width
one chain and of length ten chains. A quarter of 10 is of course 2 1/2 -
hence your properties one chain wide and 2 1/2 chains in length.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 10:03
PM
Subject: Area in convenient units
On
3/01/06 7:50 AM, "Martin Vlietstra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> The are and hectare fill an awkward
gap between the square metre and the
> square kilometre. The
ratio of the two is 1:10^6 so there is really room
> for a unit
between them. If the intermediate unit was 10^3 m^2, it would
>
represent an awkward area - a square with sides of length 10*10^2 m
(approx
> 31 m). Alternatively it could be defined as a "metric
acre" - a strip 100 m
> long and 10 m wide. Neither is
particularly satisfactory. An awkward
> situation all
round.
Dear Martin,
Strangely, suburban housing
allotments in Australia have, since the 1940s, been surveyed so that they
are quite close to 1000 square metres. I dont think that this was good
design; it was probably just an accident.
A typical suburban
allotment might have a frontage of 66 feet and a depth of 165 feet. These
dimensions arise by using one Gunters Chain (66 feet) for the length, and a
depth of 2 1/2 Gunters Chains.
These dimensions translate to 20.117
metres and 50.292 metres giving an area of 1012 square metres and this is
usually rounded in general conversations to 1000 square metres. Because of
this nice round number, Australians (as they negotiate for these rather
large allotments to be subdivided into smaller parcels of land) speak quite
comfortably about 400 or 500 square metre portions.
I think it is the
nice rounded value of 1000 square metres that provides everyone with a neat
reference. Most folk can visualise a house block so it follows that they
can visualise 1000 square metres.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin ASM
(NSAA), LCAMS (USMA)*
PO Box 305, Belmont, Geelong, Australia
Phone 61
3 5241 2008
Pat
Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication
matters'.
You can subscribe by going to http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
*
Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the Australian
Government Publishing Service 'Style manual for writers, editors and
printers', he is an Accredited Speaking Member (ASM) with the National
Speakers Association of Australia, and a Lifetime Certified Advanced
Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association.
For more information go to: http://metricationmatters.com
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