Marla and Kanal Explained: Sizes and Regional Differences

If you have ever looked for a plot in Pakistan or India, you have met the marla and the kanal. They are everyday units, but they are not as fixed as a metre or a kilogram. The same "5 marla" can be a different number of square feet depending on where you are. This guide explains the standard sizes, the exceptions and how to convert between units.

The basic relationship

These two relationships hold everywhere:

• 1 kanal = 20 marla
• 1 acre = 8 kanal (so 160 marla)

What changes is how large a single marla is.

The standard (revenue) marla

In the traditional land revenue system used in Punjab and much of northern Pakistan, one marla is defined as 272.25 square feet, which is the same as 30.25 square yards. It comes from the old British measure: 1 marla = 9 sarsai, and 1 sarsai = 30.25 sq ft (a square of 5.5 feet on each side).

On that basis:

• 1 marla = 272.25 sq ft = 30.25 sq yd = about 25.29 square metres
• 1 kanal = 5,445 sq ft = 605 sq yd = about 505.86 square metres
• 1 acre = 43,560 sq ft, which equals 8 kanal. The numbers check out: 8 × 5,445 = 43,560

Why you might see 225 sq ft instead

Many private and cantonment housing schemes, and parts of Islamabad and Karachi, use a "housing" marla of 225 square feet (25 square yards). With that rule a kanal is often 4,500 sq ft (500 sq yd). Developers pick it because the numbers are neat, and because a "5 marla" plot then comes to 1,125 sq ft, a size buyers know.

The sizes you will see in practice:

Where	Typical marla size
Punjab revenue records / many Punjab towns	272.25 sq ft
Many housing societies (DHA, Bahria and others), some Islamabad sectors	Often 225 sq ft, but check each scheme
Karachi and Sindh	Plots are usually described in square yards, and "marla" is less common
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan	Varies, with local units such as jerib also in use

This table is a guide, not a rule. Schemes publish their own plot sizes, and these have changed over the years. The safe approach is to ask for the plot's area in square feet.

Conversion table (standard 272.25 sq ft marla)

Marla	Sq ft	Sq yd	Sq m (approx)
3 marla	816.75	90.75	75.9
5 marla	1,361.25	151.25	126.5
7 marla	1,905.75	211.75	177.1
10 marla	2,722.5	302.5	252.9
1 kanal (20 marla)	5,445	605	505.9
2 kanal	10,890	1,210	1,011.7
1 acre (8 kanal)	43,560	4,840	4,046.9

Using the 225 sq ft housing marla, the same plots are smaller: 5 marla is 1,125 sq ft and 10 marla is 2,250 sq ft. The gap between the two systems is about 17%, which is a big difference when prices are in lakhs per marla.

Handy formulas

• Marla to square feet: marla × 272.25 (or × 225 for housing-scheme marla)
• Square feet to marla: sq ft ÷ 272.25
• Kanal to marla: kanal × 20
• Square feet to square metres: sq ft × 0.092903
• Hectare to acres: hectare × 2.471

Example: a plot is 30 ft by 60 ft. The area is 1,800 sq ft. Divided by 272.25, that is about 6.61 marla on the revenue standard. On a 225 sq ft marla it is exactly 8 marla. The same plot, two different "marla" numbers.

Covered area is not plot area

Marla and kanal describe land. A house built on 5 marla is not necessarily "5 marla of covered area". With two floors on the same plot, the covered area is roughly double what the ground floor occupies. Builders talk about covered area in square feet, and flats are priced by square foot. Keep the two ideas separate when you compare prices.

Checklist when buying or selling

1. Ask what the marla size is for this plot, and get the plot area in sq ft written in the documents.
2. Compare the plot dimensions (for example 25 × 50 ft = 1,250 sq ft) with the area claimed.
3. Check the fard or the society's allotment letter. Land records use the revenue marla.
4. For agricultural land, confirm whether the area is measured in kanal, acre or the local unit, and check the latest record from the patwari or the land record centre.
5. Compare prices per sq ft, not per marla, if you are looking at two different areas.
6. Have the final measurement verified by a surveyor for large deals.

Quick conversions on this site

Use the land area converter to switch between marla, kanal, acre, sq ft, sq yd and sq m, and pick the marla size that matches your area. For length, weight and other everyday units, try the unit converter.