The square mile (abbreviated as sq mi and sometimes as mi2) is an imperial and US unit of measure for an area equal to the area of a square of one statute mile. It should not be confused with miles square, which refers to the number of miles on each side squared. For instance, 20 miles square (20 × 20 miles) is equal to 400 square miles.
One square mile is equivalent to:
- 4,014,489,600 square inches
- 27,878,400 square feet
- 3,097,600 square yards
- 640 acres
- 258.9988110336 hectares
- 2560 roods
- 25,899,881,103.36 square centimetres
- 2,589,988.110336 square metres
- 2.589988110336 square kilometres
When applied to a portion of the earth's surface, which is curved rather than flat, "square mile" is an informal synonym for section.
Famous quotes containing the words square and/or mile:
“If the physicians had not their cassocks and their mules, if the doctors had not their square caps and their robes four times too wide, they would never had duped the world, which cannot resist so original an appearance.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Telephone poles were matchsticks, put there to be snapped off at a whim. Dogs trotting across the road were suddenly big trucks. Old ladies turned into moving—vans. Everything was too bright, but very funny and made for my delight. And about half a mile from my long liquid breakfast I turned carefully down a side street and parked, and sat beaming happily through the tannic fog for about an hour, remembering how witty we all had been, how handsome and talented ... [ellipsis in original]”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)