History of an Acre

The term “acre” comes from the Middle Ages and at that time gave a very simple explanation of size. When talking about land, which has the size of 1 acre, it was meant that two oxen could plow this land within a day.With 2 acres it was 2 days with the two oxen, with 3 acres it was three days and so on. With this short historical excursion, we will now explain to you how to recognize an acre nowadays without knowing how long it takes two oxen to plow it. Let’s go!

A little bit of Math

This topic is also for non-mathegeniuses. An acre is approximately 43,560 square feet or 4,840 square yards. So an acre can be one foot wide and 43,560 feet long and we have a plot of land of one acre. Or, for example, it may be 209 ft x 209 ft, in which case we have an acre that is square. After this brief math unit, we will now show you how to visually imagine an acre.Visual comparisons of an AcreNow it gets exciting. To give you a better idea, here are a few comparisons of how big an acre is.
1 Acre has the same Size as:

• 15 Tennis courts
• 9 basketball courts
• 242 Food Trucks
• 20,000 People
• 391,375 One Dollar Notes
• 145 Parking Lots

Now you should have a better idea of how big an acre really is. Huge, isn’t it?

Why is it important to know the size

It’s really quite simple: you need to know what you’re getting for your money.
But there are other points, so you should know how big your property is.
It is partly predetermined how big a plot of land has to be so that you can build there at all. Just because you can fit a house on it doesn’t mean you can build one there. Example: In one county it is specified that a lot must be at least 1 acre in size to be allowed to build there. A lot that is 0.5 acres is easily large enough to build two houses on. However, it is not allowed.

In addition, there are countless other regulations that must be considered regarding size. For example, how big the house can be, if a pool is allowed, if a septic system can be installed and much more.
All these informations can be found in the Zoning Bylaws or also called Zoning Ordinance. We will tell you more about this in another blog post. So don’t miss the next posts!