Square Feet to Marla

This is the reverse of the usual conversion, and it is the one you need when you have a real measurement. A survey, a title deed, a building plan or a tape measure all give you square feet or square metres. Marla is the unit the market prices in. Converting between the two is how you find out what a plot you have actually measured is worth.

The complication is that the answer depends entirely on which marla standard applies to your area — and this calculator shows all three at once, so you can see straight away how differently the same piece of ground can be described. A plot of 2,722.5 square feet is 10 marla on the traditional standard, 10.89 marla at 250 square feet, and 12.1 marla at 225.

Why this direction is the harder one

Going from marla to square feet is a single multiplication and the answer is always a whole, tidy number when the marla figure is tidy. Going the other way produces fractions, and that is where disagreements between buyers and sellers come from: a plot measured at 2,600 square feet is not a round number of marla on any standard, so both parties reach for whichever figure suits them.

The calculator therefore shows all three standards side by side rather than the one you selected. Seeing 9.55, 10.40 and 11.56 marla for the same plot is what makes the risk concrete. If a seller describes the plot as 10 marla and you measure 2,600 square feet, you now know which standard they are working on — the 250 square foot one — and you can price accordingly.

Reading a survey or a title deed

Revenue documents, sale deeds and mutation papers nearly always carry the physical measurement alongside the local unit, and the physical measurement is the one to trust. Look for square feet, square yards, square metres or kanal, then convert from that.

Note that old revenue records often give the measurement in kanal and marla rather than square feet — for example, “1 kanal 5 marla”. Since a kanal is 20 marla, that is 25 marla in total, which at the traditional standard is 6,806.25 square feet. Adding the parts before converting is the step people miss.

If the document gives square yards, divide by 30.25 to get traditional marla, because 272.25 square feet is exactly 30.25 square yards. That is a quick mental check: a plot of 302.5 square yards is 10 traditional marla.

Worked examples

A plot measuring 1,361 square feet. Divided by 272.25 that is 5.00 marla — as close to exactly 5 as a real measurement ever gets. On the 250 standard it would be 5.44 marla. This is the classic 5 marla plot, and the measurement confirming 1,361.25 square feet is a good sign the plot is the traditional size.

A plot measuring 2,722.5 square feet. Exactly 10 marla traditionally, 10.89 at 250 square feet, and 12.10 at 225. If a listing calls this 10 marla and the price is set per marla, you are being sold the traditional standard.

A plot measuring 1,200 square feet. That is 4.41 traditional marla, 4.80 at 250 and 5.33 at 225. Nothing rounds to a whole marla, which is normal for a plot that was measured rather than sold by unit. Price it on the square footage, not on the nearest marla figure.

Covered area and floor area ratio

Once you have the plot area, the next number that matters is how much you are allowed to build on it. Local byelaws set a maximum covered area and a floor area ratio (FAR) or floor space index as a multiple of plot area, and both are defined against the plot's measured area — not against its advertised marla size.

That is a practical reason to convert from measurement rather than from the listing. If the byelaw allows a floor area of twice the plot, the difference between 2,500 and 2,722.5 square feet of plot is 445 square feet of permitted building — a room and a half, decided by which marla standard the plot is on.

Use this calculator to get the measured area right, then read your authority's byelaw table against that figure. Building without checking is the expensive mistake here, because an illegal covered area can be ordered demolished.