Orders of magnitude (area)

An area of one square kilometre consists of 100 hectares each containing 10000 square metres.

This page is a progressive and labelled list of the SI area orders of magnitude, with certain examples appended to some list objects.

List of orders of magnitude for area

Factor (m2)	Multiple	Value	Item
10−70		2.6×10−70 m2	Planck area, $\frac{G \hbar}{c^3}$
10−52		10−52 m2	1 shed
10−48	1 square yoctometre (ym2)	1 ym2
10−43		100,000 ym2	1 femtobarn
10−42	1 square zeptometre (zm2)	1 zm2
10−36	1 square attometre (am2)	1 am2
10−30	1 square femtometre (fm2)	1 fm2
10−29		66.52 fm2	Thomson cross-section of the electron
10−28		100 fm2	1 barn, roughly the cross-sectional area of an uranium nucleus
10−24	1 square picometre (pm2)	1 pm2
10−20	1 square angstrom (Å2)	10,000 pm2
10−19		100,000 pm2	Area of a lipid bilayer, per molecule
		75-260,000 pm2	Surface area of the 20 standard amino acids
10−18	1 square nanometre (nm2)	1 nm2
10−16		100 nm2	Globular proteins: solvent-accessible surface area of a typical globular protein, having a typical molecular mass of ~35000 u (quite variable)
10−14		17,000 nm2	Cross-sectional area of a nuclear pore complex in vertebrates
10−12	1 square micrometre (μm2)	6 μm2	Surface area of an E. coli bacterium
10−10		100 μm2	Surface area of a red blood cell
10−9		6,000 μm2 - 110,000 μm2	Range of common LCD screen pixel sizes
		7,000 μm2	Area of a dot printed using 300 dots per inch resolution
		8,000 μm2	Cross-sectional area of a straight human hair that is 100 um in diameter

List of orders of magnitude for areas 10⁻⁸ to 10⁻¹ square metres

Factor (m2)	Multiple	Value	Item
10−8		55,000 μm2	Size of a pixel on a typical modern computer display
10−7		2-400,000 μm2	Cross-sectional area of a mechanical pencil lead (0.5-0.7 mm in diameter)
10−6	1 square millimetre (mm2)	1–2 mm2	Area of a human fovea
		2 mm2	Area of the head of a pin
10−5		30–50 mm2	Area of a 6–8 mm hole punched in a piece of paper by a hole punch
10−4	1 square centimetre (cm2)	290 mm2	Area of one side of a U.S. penny
		500 mm2	Area of a typical postage stamp
10−3		1,100 mm2	Area of a human retina
		4,600 mm2	Area of the face of a credit card
		4,800 mm2	Largest side of a cigarette box
10−2	1 square decimetre (dm2)	10,000 mm2	Index card (3 × 5 inches)
		60,000 mm2	American letter paper (11 × 8.5 inches, "A" size)
		62,370 mm2	International A4 paper (210 × 297 mm)
		93,000 mm2	1 square foot
10−1		125,000 mm2	International A3 paper (297 × 420 mm)
		180,000 mm2	Surface area of a basketball (diameter 24 cm)
		250,000 mm2	International A2 paper (420 × 594 mm)
		500,000 mm2	International A1 paper (594 × 841 mm)

List of orders of magnitude for areas 10⁰ to 10⁷ square metres.

Factor (m2)	Multiple	Value	Item
100	1 square metre	1 m2	International A0 paper (841 × 1189 mm)
		1.73 m2	A number commonly used as the average body surface area of a human
		2–4 m2	Area of the top of an office desk
101		10–20 m2	A parking space
		70 m2	Approximate surface area of a human lung
102	1 square decametre (dam2)	100 m2	One are (a)
		162 m2	Size of a volleyball court (18 × 9 metres)
		202 m2	Floor area of a median suburban three-bedroom house in the US in 2010: 2,169 sq ft (201.5 m2)
		261 m2	Size of a tennis court
103		1,000 m2	Surface area of a Greek Stremma
		1,250 m2	Surface area of the water in an Olympic-size swimming pool
		4,047 m2	1 acre
		5,400 m2	Size of an American football field
		7,140 m2	Size of a typical football (soccer) field
104	1 square hectometre (hm2)	10,000 m2	1 hectare (ha)
		17,000 m2	Approximate area of a cricket field (theoretical limits: 6,402 m2 to 21,273 m2)
		22,074 m2	Area of a Manhattan city block
		53,000 m2	Base of the Great Pyramid of Giza
105		190,000 m2	Irish National Botanic Gardens
		440,000 m2	Vatican City
		600,000 m2	Total floor area of the Pentagon
106	1 square kilometre (km2)	2 km2	Monaco (country ranked 192nd by area)
		2.59 km2	1 square mile
		2.9 km2	City of London (not all of modern London)
107		59.5 km2	Manhattan Island (land area)
		61 km2	San Marino

Factor (m2)	Multiple	Value	Item
108		105 km2	Paris (inner city only)
		110 km2	Walt Disney World
		272 km2	Taipei City
		630 km2	Toronto
109		1100 km2	Hong Kong
		1290 km2	Los Angeles, California, USA (city)
		1800 km2	Surface area of a typical neutron star
		1962 km2	Jacksonville, Florida; largest city in the Continental US
		2188 km2	Tokyo
		5700 km2	Bali
		8028 km2	Community of Madrid, Spain
1010		11,000 km2	Jamaica
		68,870 km2	Lake Victoria
		84,000 km2	Austria
1011		100,000 km2	South Korea
		167,996 km2	Jiuquan in China
		300,000 km2	Italy
		357,000 km2	Germany
		377,900 km2	Japan
		510,000 km2	Spain
		780,000 km2	Turkey
1012	1 square megametre (Mm2)	1.0 Mm2	Egypt (country ranked 29th by area)
		1.7 Mm2	The state of Alaska, the largest state in the United States
		3.10 Mm2	Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in Russia (largest subnational governing body)
		7.74 Mm2	Australia (country ranked 6th by area)
		9 Mm2	Largest extent of the Roman Empire
		9.5 Mm2	China/ United States of America
1013		10 Mm2	Canada (including water)
		14 Mm2	Antarctica
		14 Mm2	Arable land worldwide
		16.6 Mm2	Surface area of Pluto
		17 Mm2	Russia (country ranked 1st by area)
		30 Mm2	Africa
		36 Mm2	Largest extent of the British Empire
		38 Mm2	Surface area of the Moon
		77 Mm2	Atlantic Ocean
1014		144 Mm2	Surface area of Mars
		150 Mm2	Land area of Earth
		156 Mm2	Pacific Ocean
		360 Mm2	Water area of Earth
		510 Mm2	Total surface area of Earth

List of orders of magnitude for areas 10¹⁵ to 10²⁶ square metres.

Factor (m2)	Multiple	Value	Item
1015		1,000 Mm2	Surface area of the white dwarf, Van Maanen's star
		7,600 Mm2	Neptune
1016		43,000 Mm2	Saturn
		61,000 Mm2	Jupiter, the "surface" area of the spheroid (calculated from the mean radius as reported by NASA). The cross-sectional area of Jupiter, which is the same as the "circle" of Jupiter seen by an approaching spacecraft, is exactly one quarter the surface-area of the overall sphere, which in the case of Jupiter is approximately 1.535e+16 square meters.
1017		2-600,000 Mm2	Surface area of the brown dwarf star CT Chamaeleontis.
		460,000 Mm2	Area swept by the Moon's orbit of Earth
1018	1 square gigametre (Gm2)	6.1 Gm2	Surface area of the Sun
1019		30 Gm2	Surface area of the star Vega
1020		100 Gm2
1021		1,000 Gm2
1022		11,000 Gm2	Area swept by Mercury's orbit around the Sun
		37,000 Gm2	Area swept by Venus' orbit around the Sun
		71,000 Gm2	Area swept by Earth's orbit around the Sun
1023		160,000 Gm2	Area swept by Mars' orbit around the Sun
		281,000 Gm2	Surface area of a Dyson sphere with a radius of 1 AU
1024	1 square terametre (Tm2)	1.9 Tm2	Area swept by Jupiter's orbit around the Sun
		6.4 Tm2	Area swept by Saturn's orbit around the Sun
		8.5 Tm2	Surface area of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse
1025		24 Tm2	Surface area of the largest known star, the Hypergiant VY Canis Majoris
		26 Tm2	Area swept by Uranus' orbit around the Sun
		64 Tm2	Area swept by Neptune's orbit around the Sun
1026		110 Tm2	Area swept by Pluto's orbit around the Sun

List of orders of magnitude for areas 10²⁷ square metres and larger.

Factor (m2)	Multiple	Value	Item
1030	1 square petametre (Pm2)
1031		10 Pm2
1032		200 Pm2	Roughly the surface area of an Oort Cloud
		300 Pm2	Roughly the surface area of a Bok globule
1033		1,000 Pm2
1034		30,000 Pm2	Roughly the surface area of The Bubble
1035		100,000 Pm2
1036	1 square exametre (Em2)
...
1041		700,000 Em2	Roughly the area of Milky Way's galactic disk
1042	1 square zettametre (Zm²)
...
1048	1 square yottametre (Ym²)