Punjab Land Measurement: Marla, Kanal and Bigha to Square Feet
A buyer in Kharar agrees to a plot described as five marla. He works out his budget on 1,125 square feet, because that is what the dealer’s board implied. The seller’s fard puts the same plot closer to 1,361 square feet. Nobody in that conversation lied to anybody. They were using two different marlas, and neither side said so out loud.
Punjab land measurement is the one part of a property transaction where everybody assumes everybody else means the same thing. The units are old, they descend from a rope-and-pole survey system, and the revenue record uses a stricter version of them than the open market does. A plot changes size depending on who is describing it.
This is the full chain of units, the exact conversions, the one trap that costs buyers real money, and how to check the area on your own documents before you agree a price.
Why Punjab land measurement trips people up
Most Indian states measure agricultural land in bighas and urban plots in square feet or square yards. Punjab, Haryana and Himachal kept an older system built on the karam, a measuring pole of five and a half feet. Every unit above it is a multiple of that pole, which is why the numbers look strange to anyone arriving from Delhi or Mumbai. A marla is not a round figure because it was never designed to be one.
The second complication is that the same words do different jobs in different settings. In the revenue record the units are fixed and precise. In a colony sale or a dealer’s advertisement they are used loosely, as a rough size bracket rather than an exact area. Both usages are common and both are honest in their own context. Trouble starts when one is quietly swapped for the other in a negotiation.
The full chain, from karam to killa
Everything begins with the karam at 5.5 feet. Square that pole and you get a sarsai. Nine sarsai make a marla, twenty marla make a kanal, and eight kanal make a killa, which is simply the Punjabi word for an acre. Here is the whole ladder with exact equivalents.
| Unit | Equals | Square feet | Square yards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Karam | 5.5 feet (length) | — | — |
| 1 Sarsai | 1 square karam | 30.25 | 3.36 |
| 1 Marla | 9 sarsai | 272.25 | 30.25 |
| 1 Biswa | 4 marla | 1,089 | 121 |
| 1 Kanal | 20 marla | 5,445 | 605 |
| 1 Bigha | 4 kanal | 21,780 | 2,420 |
| 1 Killa / Acre | 8 kanal | 43,560 | 4,840 |
Two things in that table are worth memorising. A kanal is 5,445 square feet, and a killa is 43,560 square feet, identical to an acre anywhere else in the world. If somebody tells you a killa is different from an acre, they are mistaken.
Marla to square feet: the number that decides your price
The marla does more work than any other unit in Punjab property, because residential plots in Mohali, Kharar, Zirakpur and Ludhiana are almost always described in marla. One marla in the revenue record is 272.25 square feet, or 30.25 square yards.
- 3 marla = 816.75 sq ft
- 5 marla = 1,361.25 sq ft
- 7 marla = 1,905.75 sq ft
- 10 marla = 2,722.5 sq ft (half a kanal)
- 14 marla = 3,811.5 sq ft
- 20 marla = 5,445 sq ft (one kanal)
To go the other way, divide square feet by 272.25. A 1,800 square foot plot is 6.61 marla. Dealers will round that to seven in conversation and to 6.61 in the sale deed, which is normal and not a problem provided the deed figure is the one you priced against.
The 272.25 trap: when a marla is not a marla
Here is where money is actually lost. Across the Tricity you will hear plots quoted in a marla of 25 square yards, or 225 square feet, particularly in older colonies and in sale talk that borrows Chandigarh’s plot vocabulary. That is roughly seventeen per cent smaller than the revenue marla of 30.25 square yards.
On a five marla plot the gap between the two definitions is about 236 square feet. At Kharar rates that is a meaningful sum, and at Mohali sector rates it is a very large one. The buyer is not being defrauded in most cases. He simply priced one unit and bought another.
The defence is simple and takes one sentence. Never agree a price on a unit name. Agree it on square feet or square yards, and make sure that figure is written into the agreement to sell and matches the area recorded in the revenue documents. If the two disagree, resolve it before any money moves, not afterwards.
An area mismatch that goes unresolved is one of several patterns worth knowing before you pay a token — see our list of Punjab property fraud red flags.
Kanal, bigha and killa for larger holdings
Above ten marla the conversation usually switches units. A kanal at 5,445 square feet is the standard measure for larger residential plots and kothis, and the phrase half a kanal simply means ten marla. Agricultural land is discussed in killa, and a farmer describing twelve killa is describing twelve acres.
Bigha needs care. In Punjab a bigha is four kanal, which is 2,420 square yards or half a killa. In Himachal, Rajasthan and parts of Uttar Pradesh a bigha is a completely different size. If a seller uses bigha and the land sits near a state border, or the seller is from outside Punjab, confirm which bigha is meant before you build a price around it. This is one of the few places where Punjab land measurement genuinely differs from a neighbouring state using the identical word.
How the area appears on your fard and sale deed
Revenue records do not write 5 marla. They write the area in kanal and marla separated by a dash, so a plot of one kanal and six marla appears as 1-6. Larger agricultural holdings appear as killa, kanal and marla, so 2-3-8 is two killa, three kanal and eight marla. Reading these three numbers correctly is the whole skill.
You can pull your own record from the Punjab government land records portal at jamabandi.punjab.gov.in and check the area against what the seller has told you. It costs nothing and takes a few minutes. A mismatch between the fard area and the agreed area is one of the most common and most avoidable problems in a Punjab property purchase.
If you have not pulled your own record yet, our step-by-step guide to checking jamabandi and fard online walks through the portal in detail.
One more check worth running. The area in the sale deed, the area in the agreement to sell and the area in the fard should be the same figure. If a builder or coloniser has quoted you a super area or a saleable area that includes common space, that number will be larger than the revenue area and should never be the basis for the registry.
The declared area also feeds directly into what you owe at registration — see our Punjab stamp duty cost breakdown for how that figure is used.
A quick Punjab land measurement reference
| You are told | Actual area (revenue standard) |
|---|---|
| 3 marla | 816.75 sq ft / 90.75 sq yd |
| 5 marla | 1,361.25 sq ft / 151.25 sq yd |
| 10 marla | 2,722.5 sq ft / 302.5 sq yd |
| 1 kanal | 5,445 sq ft / 605 sq yd |
| 2 kanal | 10,890 sq ft / 1,210 sq yd |
| 1 bigha | 21,780 sq ft / 2,420 sq yd |
| 1 killa (acre) | 43,560 sq ft / 4,840 sq yd |
Keep this beside you when a dealer quotes a size. Converting the figure yourself, in front of him, takes ten seconds and changes the tone of the negotiation. It signals that the area is going to be checked against the record, which is precisely the discipline that prevents the expensive version of this mistake.
Frequently asked questions
How many square feet is one marla in Punjab? In the revenue record, 272.25 square feet, which is 30.25 square yards. Some colony and dealer usage quotes a smaller marla of 225 square feet, so always confirm the figure in square feet rather than accepting the unit name.
Is a killa the same as an acre? Yes. One killa is exactly one acre, 43,560 square feet or 4,840 square yards. The two words are used interchangeably in Punjab.
What does 1-6 mean on a fard? One kanal and six marla, written as kanal first and marla second. A three-part figure like 2-3-8 reads as killa, kanal and marla.
Is a bigha in Punjab the same as a bigha elsewhere? No. A Punjab bigha is four kanal, or half a killa. Bighas in Himachal, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are different sizes entirely, so confirm which one a seller means.
Where can I verify the area of a plot myself? Pull the fard from the Punjab land records portal and compare its area against the agreement to sell. Any difference should be settled before payment.
Not sure the area you were quoted matches the record? Send us the plot details and the fard, and we will tell you whether the numbers line up — free, no obligation.