Pierre, I do not agree with you. Having just square metres and square kilometres leaves people with a rule of 1,000,000 as opposed to a rule of 1000. While a rule of 1000 is not really practical with square measures, I think that the use of the are alongside the hectare has a lot to commend it. We would then have 1 are = 100 m² 1 hectare = 100 ares 1 km² = 100 hectares.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Pierre Abbat Sent: 26 January 2009 03:45 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:42591] Re: ectare was: An Associated Press article On Sunday 25 January 2009 20:24:12 STANLEY DOORE wrote: > Hectare is just another name and conversion to learn, remember and > visualize. I think the hectare ought to be scrapped. If any unit of area should have a special name, it's the dunam, or stremma, which is 1000 m²*, which follows the rule of 1000. A gigadunam is a square megameter. Neither the gigare nor the megare is the square of any named unit. This would give a name to the unit midway between the square kilometer and the square megameter. Lake Superior is 82.4 megadunams. A hectare-millimeter is 10 m³, which isn't the cube of anything rational, nor does it have a unit name. A dunam-millimeter is a cubic meter, which is a kiloliter. For people who think in powers of 1000, the latter is easier. *Except in Iraq, but the Iraqis should abolish their own special dunam and use the same one as their neighbors. Pierre
