Talk:Hectare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
 | This  level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||
| ||||||||
Purpose of Hectare (Explanation Section)
The article suggests that the hectare is used in place of the square meter where it 'would be cumbersome and unnecessarily precise' to do so (added here). But surely units could be given as 270,000 sq m. rather than 27ha which is equally precise and not particularly cumbersome. My view, on the basis of no hard facts at all is that the hectare is a historical hangover used predominantly in countries which transitioned from the imperial acre to the quasi-metric hectare. But I could of course be totally wrong? orizon 03:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Canadian usage
Google search shows (1) that both "hectare" and "acre" are widely used in Canada, (2) "hectare" is slightly more common, (3) "hectare" is almost universally preferred in official (government) publications and widely preferred in journalism and education, (4) "acre" is widely used in commercial contexts, notably real estate. Avt tor 23:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- While mkevlar's comment saying only hectares are official is probably true, I (in western Canada) have never once seen a piece of real estate advertised in hectares, and I think Avt tor's original statement is essentially correct. I don't think it's for any nostalgic reason - acres are much smaller, making it sound as if you're getting more land. (Similarly, stores here advertise their meat prices by the pound, even though it's weighed in kilograms - because the kilogram price sounds like more than double.) TooManyFingers (talk) 16:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
Not true! I am a Canadian who uses hectares every day in the measurement of urban parks. Officially no one used acres. mkevlar 30 January 2016 (UTC)
BIPM SI 8th ed
BIPM have moved on. The 8th edition of SI has brought the hectare in from the cold and includes it in a group of units that are accepted for use with SI. (Table 6). The article text as it stands reflects some of the 7th edition, has been edited several times and reads awkwardly. I intend to update the article to reflect the current standing of hectare in SI by BIPM. Bleakcomb (talk) 03:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Last word
Square kilometers, as in square miles, are too large for such close resolution tasks in the needs of daily life, and square meters or square yards or feet too large.
Is it possible that the last word of the first paragraph should have been 'small'?
Muddyork (talk) 05:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Merge from Decare
Please see Talk:Decare. ANDROS1337 22:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
- I have proposed merging the articles are, decare and centiare into this article. The articles decare and centiare are so short that they should be merged into other articles, while the history of the are and hectare (which I am currently writing) are so tightly intertwinned that merging the two makes sense. I propose that this article should be the "host" article as the hectare is the most widely used of the four units of measurement. Martinvl (talk) 13:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Removed some weak sentences.
Areas less than one hectare are often expressed in square metres, and areas 10,000 ha and above in square kilometres. The number of significant figures is often limited to four digits.[citation needed]
Several people have had a go at these sentences and they don't seem to be improving. The often is weak and borders on a weasel word. It is the equivalent of it often rains, which is quite true but very vague. And the reverse of the limits given is often true as well - areas less than one hectare and greater than 10,000 ha are often expressed in hectares. The problem is probably that the sentence is just POV. By the way here are some examples of hectares in use (even millions of hectares). and --Bleakcomb (talk) 09:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
When did the Metric System become Law in the UK
As one of the first year entry to college undertaking Building Construction we were amougst the first students to be educated under the METRIC ACT for the UK. We were told that this Act was past into law in 1972.
I do not have a copy of this law now, so many years on, but I know I had one and all my working life in Building Design within the Civil Service we used the METRIC SYSTEM.
So what's this talk about it coming into effect as late as 1995. This country has been metricated since 1972.
For verification see METRIC ACT 1972.
John McNamara —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.226.86 (talk) 10:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
- It became law under EU directive 80/181/EEC to use hectares and square kilometres for all “commercial, public health, public administration and public health” purposes in 1986 with the proviso that acres could be used for “purposes of land registration”. This meaning of “commercial purposes” was that if I advertised land at £x per unit area, I had to use hectares, but if I advertised a piece of land of area Y, I could express it in acres.
- On 1-Jan-2010 the law changed – the scope of the directive was widened by the removal of text which limited the purposes. The meaning of the new directive has yet to be clarified by the courts. On the same day the acre ceased to be legal for purpose of land registration (in practice the Land Registry Office had stopped using the acre a number of years previously).
- See European units of measurement directives. Martinvl (talk) 11:02, 29 March 2010 (UTC).
Removal of "citation needed flag" (16-Nov-2010)
I removed the Tomna form the list of synonyms for the decare as it is defined as being about 1124 square metres (see Maltese units of measurement. References for the other units of measure appear in the relevant Wikipedia articles. Martinvl (talk) 13:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks Martinv1 for your good faith efforts to make Wikipedia better. Actually however, Wikipedia policy does call for any substantive claim in all articles to be verifiably sourced per WP:V; this is one of the very few core wiki-policies. "Wikipedia itself is not considered an adequate source": see the section Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it in the WP:V policy. The lone exception, where sources are not required, is disambiguation pages.
- It is probably true that we need not cite every detail about any particular usage of hectare-related measurement units, but if a claim is made about the usage of some unit in this country or that (which is an assertion), then a citation should be provided that will source such claims. A very acceptable alternative is to make fewer claims in this particular article and leave the detail to be claimed, and then only sourced, in the article that covers the linked measurement.
- It is no problem with me for a little more time to pass so this can be sorted out before deleting the unsourced claims, but the {{citation needed}} tags should stay until the sources are provided. Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Misleading image
The image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hectare.png illustrates that one are is equal to 10m^2 and that a hectare is equal to 100m^2, when in fact an are is 100m^2 and a hectare, as the article states, is 10000m^2. I think the person who produced the image does not understand what m^2 means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.204.141 (talk) 00:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I get the feeling that there is a confusion between when something is x square metres and when something is x metres squared. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.204.141 (talk) 01:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
- On the contrary - since one are has an area of 100m^2, it can be made up of 100 squares, each on 1m^2. These squares can be laid out in a larger square, that has sides of 10m. Martinvl (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
(Same guy from before). My bad —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.204.141 (talk) 10:23, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
