What is the length of an acre of land in feet?

Answer 1

An acre is a measure of area of size 43,560 square feet.

Assuming you have a rectangular area and take length to be the longer of the dimensions of it then it can be any length you like greater than, or equal to, √43,560ft ≈ 208.7 ft.

The width of the area is calculated by width = 43,560 ÷ length.

(If you allow the length to be either of the dimensions, then it can be any value greater than 0 ft you want.)

For example:

• if the area is 1 ft wide, it is 43560 ft long;
• If the area is 10 ft wide, it is 4356 ft long;
• if the area is 1/12 ft wide (ie 1 inch wide) it is 522720 ft long;
• If the area is 66 ft wide it is 660 ft long.

The last given example is [probably] from where the unit of area of an acre comes.

66ft = 22 yds = 1 chain

660 ft = 220 yds = 10 chains = 1 furlong = 1 furrow long.

An acre was an open field that could be (approximately) ploughed by a man and his ox in a day - each furrow would be 220 yds long and an area 22 yds wide would be ploughed (one furrow at a time).