Convert square kilometers to square miles instantly.
Definition: A square kilometer (symbol: km²) is the area of a square with sides of one kilometer. It equals exactly one million square meters.
History/origin: The square kilometer became a standard large-area metric unit as governments, cartographers, and geographers needed a practical way to measure cities, forests, and regions.
Current use: Square kilometers are used for the area of cities, lakes, countries, parks, and large land or water regions.
Definition: The square mile is a large imperial and US customary area unit. It covers a one-mile by one-mile square, equal to 27,878,400 ft² or 640 acres.
History/origin: Surveying, county records, and regional maps in mile-using countries made mi² a natural unit for describing broad territories before metric area units became widespread.
Current use: Mi² is common in US geography, municipal profiles, park statistics, lake areas, county data, population density figures, and comparisons of large places.
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