Why is a section of land 640 acres?
I don’t know. But that is what was specified in the original instructions to the government surveyors when the State of Oklahoma was first laid out. I do, however, have a neat fact about the chain that was used when measuring the original sections. It is called a Gunters chain and it was 66 feet long. It was that specific length for a reason; to calculate acreage of tracts of land. 80 Gunters chains placed end to end measured one mile (5280 feet). 80 chains x 80 chains = 6400/10 = 640 acres. So the product of the number of chains measured on each side of a tract of land divided by 10 equals the number of acres Example: 5 chains x 5 chains = 2.5 acres 10 chains x 10 chains = 10 acres 20 chains x 20 chains = 40 acres 40 chains x 40 chains = 160 acres How does that work? I don’t know. But one acre of land would then, by default, be the sum of 66’ x 66’ (1 chain x 1 chain) divided by 0.10 = 43,560 square feet, which is the number used in all acreage