What is an Acre Exactly?

By: Jodi Henke

We’ve been using the “acre” as a way of measuring land since the first plow dug into American soil. The area of an acre is a lot bigger than a few feet but much less than a square mile. So how did this moniker of measurement come to be?

Michael Pugh is a land expert with Ownerly, a real estate data company, and he’s also interested in land history. He says the term “acre” comes from an old English word meaning “field”.