square miles

The square mile is an imperial and US unit of area equal the area of a square of one statute mile. It should not be confused with the archaic miles square, which refers to the number of miles on each side squared. For instance, 20 miles square (20 x 20 miles) is equal to 400 square miles.

Symbols

There is no universally agreed symbol but the following are used:

• square mile
• sq mile
• sq mi
• sq m (this can be confused with square meter)
• mile/-2
• mi/-2
• m/-2 (this can be confused with square meter)
• mile^2
• mi^2
• m^2 (this can be confused with square meter)
• mile²
• mi²
• m² (this can be confused with square meter)

Conversions

1 square mile is equivalent to:

• 4,014,489,600 square inches
• 27,878,400 square feet
• 3,097,600 square yards
• 640 acres
• 25,899,881,103.36 square centimetres
• 2,589,988.110336 square metres
• 2.589988110336 square kilometres

In the Public Land Survey System of the U.S. and the Dominion Land Survey of Canada, the size of a standard section of land is one square mile, but always with the marginally larger survey definition.

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