# Dismil, Bharana, Biswansi: The Local Land Words Nobody Translates > The regional names for land measurement across India, which ones map to a fixed area, which ones vary by village, and how to pin down a unit you have never heard of. - Canonical: https://www.agriva.ai/blog/regional-land-unit-names-india - Published: 2026-10-04 - Author: Agriva Editorial - Category: Buying guides - Tags: land-units, dismil, regional, terminology, conversion - Reading time: 4 min - Source: Agriva (https://www.agriva.ai) --- Every Indian land market has words that never appear in the paperwork. A seller says the plot is forty dismil, or two bharana, or eight biswansi, and the deed says something entirely different in hectares. Some of these words map to an exact area. Others are genuinely local and mean different things two districts apart. Knowing which kind you are dealing with is the whole skill. ## Words that map to a fixed area **Dismil** (also desimal, decimal). One hundredth of an acre, **435.6 square feet**. Used across Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, and the most common Hindi-language land unit in searches. Numerically identical to the **cent** of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. **Gaj.** A square yard, **9 square feet**. Stable everywhere it is used across the north. 100 gaj is 900 square feet. **Killa.** Punjab and Haryana's word for an acre, **43,560 square feet**. "Four killa" is four acres. **Kanal.** 5,445 square feet, one eighth of an acre. Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, J&K. **Marla.** 272.25 square feet, one twentieth of a kanal. **Murabba.** A square of 25 killa, **25 acres**, laid out under the canal colonies. Still referenced in Punjab and Haryana records. **Biswa.** One twentieth of a bigha. **Biswansi** is one twentieth of a biswa. Both are stable _relative to the local bigha_ -- which is the catch, because the bigha itself is not stable. A pucca biswa in UP is 1,361.25 square feet; the same word elsewhere is something else entirely. **Chatak.** 45 square feet, West Bengal. One sixteenth of a katha. **Lecha.** 144 square feet, Assam. One twentieth of a katha. **Guntha / gunta.** 1,089 square feet. Karnataka and Maharashtra. See [gunta conversions](/blog/gunta-to-cent-conversion-guide). **Ankanam.** 72 square feet, or 8 square yards. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. **Ground.** 2,400 square feet, urban Tamil Nadu. **Cottah.** West Bengal's katha, 720 square feet. ## Words that do not map to a fixed area These are the ones to be careful with. They are real units in daily use, but their value is local and sometimes derived from something other than area. **Bigha.** The headline offender: 6,804 to 27,225 square feet depending on the state, with pucca and kaccha variants inside Rajasthan and UP. See [why 1 bigha differs by state](/blog/why-1-bigha-differs-by-state-india). **Katha.** 720 square feet in West Bengal, 1,361 in Bihar, 2,880 in Assam. Same word, three sizes, adjoining states. **Bharana.** A traditional unit used in parts of Karnataka, derived from a volume of seed rather than a measured area -- the land a given quantity of seed would sow. Because seed rate varies with crop, soil and practice, so does the area. **Treat any bharana figure as needing local confirmation**; do not convert it from a table. **Kuzhi.** Parts of Tamil Nadu, commonly cited around 144 square feet but varying by district. **Seed-volume units generally.** Several regions historically measured land by how much seed it took to sow. Where a unit's name relates to a quantity of grain, assume it varies. ## How to pin down a unit you do not recognise **Ask what it is in square feet, then in acres.** Anyone transacting locally will know. If they do not, that is information. **Ask two unconnected people.** Neighbouring farmers have no stake in your transaction and will answer straight. If their answers differ, the unit is local and you need the document. **Go to the record.** The [revenue record](/blog/how-to-read-rtc-pahani-record), the sale deed and the survey sketch carry extents in official units -- acres and guntas, hectares and ares, or square metres. Those are what you are buying. Whatever the conversation used, the registered extent governs. **Convert everything to square feet.** It is the one unit that means the same thing in every state and every district, and it is how you compare two parcels honestly. The [land unit converter](/tools/land-unit-converter) covers the fixed units. **Write both forms into the agreement.** If the deal was struck at a price per bigha or per bharana, record the square-foot or acre equivalent alongside it. This costs nothing and removes the ambiguity permanently. ## Why this matters more than it sounds Land pricing is usually quoted per unit. If the unit is ambiguous, the price is ambiguous, and so is any comparison you make between parcels. It also matters at the deed. The extent that ends up in the registered document is the extent you own, and if the conversion from the spoken unit was done loosely, you have agreed one area and bought another. That is not a rounding error -- it is the most common way an Indian land transaction quietly goes wrong, and it is covered further in [red flags on a land listing](/blog/land-listing-red-flags). ## Related reading - [The complete Indian land unit cheat sheet](/blog/land-unit-conversion-india-cheat-sheet) - [Bigha to decimal conversions](/blog/bigha-to-decimal-conversion-guide) - [South India's land units decoded](/blog/south-india-land-units-explained) - [North and east India's land units](/blog/north-india-land-units-explained) - [What "2.36 acres" really means](/blog/what-2-36-acres-means-land-listing) Browse listings: [agricultural land near Lucknow](/properties/uttar-pradesh/lucknow/agricultural), [farmland around Mysore](/properties/karnataka/mysore/farmland), or run a wider [search](/search). _This article is general information, not legal advice. Land measurement units vary by state, district and local usage -- verify current requirements with a local property lawyer before making any purchase decision._