Why a bigha is not the same size everywhere

People are often surprised, and sometimes cheated, by one fact: the bigha of their village and the bigha of the next state can be very different sizes. Here is why, in plain words.

Land was measured with what people had

Before survey instruments, land was measured by pacing or with a rod, a rope or a chain. Each kingdom and region had its own rod. A unit like the bigha was defined as so many rods by so many rods. Change the rod, and the bigha changes with it.

The chain decides the size

Official records still carry these chains. The Government of India land records data standard names two for Rajasthan: the Shahjahani jarib of 165 feet and the Gantari jarib of 132 feet. A bigha is one jarib by one jarib:

• 165 × 165 = 27,225 square feet
• 132 × 132 = 17,424 square feet

In Uttarakhand the side is 82.5 feet, half of 165, giving 6,806.25 square feet. Halving the chain cuts the bigha to a quarter. In Assam the bigha is a square of 120 feet: 14,400 square feet.

The smaller rod: karam

In Haryana and Punjab the rod is the karam. Old Haryana records used a karam of 57.157 inches; after settlement the karam became 66 inches. A square karam grew from about 22.7 to 30.25 square feet, and the whole chain of units above it changed.

Pucca and kachha

Where two sizes lived side by side, people called the bigger one pucca and the smaller one kachha. These are local labels, not fixed sizes. A "kachha bigha" in one district need not match a "kachha bigha" in another.

How governments fixed it

Surveys and settlements tied each local unit to the acre, and now records are moving to hectares. The old names stay in speech and in sale talk. That is fine, as long as the paper also says square feet, square metres or hectares.

What you should do

1. Ask which bigha, katha or karam the record uses. The patwari, lekhpal or the header of the jamabandi will say.
2. Get the area in square feet or hectares as well, in writing.
3. When comparing prices, change both to the same unit first.

For a sale, a loan or a court paper, go by your own revenue record. Local units can differ between districts and between old and new records. The sizes here were read in the official documents named under Sources on 11 November 2026. This site is not a government site and gives no legal advice.

Next step

Open the converter Units state by state

Sources

• Meta Data and Data Standards (MDDS), Annexure IV, code directory CD00.01 Measurement units, Table 1.3 Conversion Factors. Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India; the table credits the Department of Land Resources. Open the document
• Revenue Records and Arrangement of Holdings (training material), Uttarakhand Academy of Administration, Nainital, conversion page. Open the document

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