Square Feet to Marla Converter — Standard & Punjab
The marla is Pakistan’s defining unit of property and its most ambiguous: the standard convention runs 272.25 square feet, the Punjab urban convention 225, and a "5-marla" plot differs by a full room depending on which one the seller silently means. This tool converts square feet under both conventions — and the sections explain how to find out which one a listing is using.
Why do two marla sizes exist at all?
The standard marla descends from British survey units — one square pole, 272.25 sq ft — while Punjab’s urban development authorities standardised a rounder 225 sq ft (a 15×15 square) for scheme plotting. Both are legitimate and current; the ambiguity is purely about which authority’s convention governs the document in front of you.
How big is the difference on a typical plot?
Stark: a 5-marla plot is 1,361 sq ft standard but 1,125 sq ft in the Punjab convention — a 236 sq ft gap, roughly a bedroom. On 10 marlas the gap doubles. Two plots advertised identically can differ by 17 percent in actual land, which prices very differently per real square foot.
Which convention do DHA, Bahria, and the private societies use?
It varies by development and even by phase — many societies plot in the 225 convention, others in 272.25, and the site plan or allotment documents state dimensions in feet that settle it definitively. Never infer from the society’s name; multiply the documented length and width and divide by both conventions to see which the marketing matches.
Square Feet to Marla Converter
The two conventions, derived
The standard marla is the British square pole: a rod of 16.5 feet squared gives 272.25 sq ft, scaling to the kanal (20 marlas, 5,445 sq ft) and acre beyond. Punjab’s urban 225 figure squares a 15-foot side instead — cleaner for scheme grids, quietly smaller. Every conversion dispute reduces to which rod the original measurement assumed, and every document that states dimensions in feet has already answered it for anyone willing to multiply.
The listing trap, anatomised
The profitable ambiguity works one direction: land sells by the marla, so quoting 225-convention marlas makes the same square footage sound larger — a 1,125 sq ft plot is "5 marla" in Punjab counting and 4.13 in standard. Per-marla price comparisons across conventions are therefore meaningless until normalised, and the normalisation is exactly this tool run twice. The defensive habit: convert every shortlisted plot to square feet, compare on price per square foot, and let the marla labels argue among themselves.
Conversions the transaction will actually demand
A purchase moves through unit regimes: the dealer speaks marlas, the site plan speaks feet, the fard may speak kanals and sarsais, the bank’s valuation report speaks square feet, and the excise assessment recorded whatever its decade preferred. Carrying one converted master figure — the area in square feet, with both marla equivalents noted — through the file prevents the unit drift that surfaces, expensively, at demarcation or resale. Our marla-to-sqft and kanal tools cover the return journeys.
More questions answered
From dimensions, not labels: the site plan’s length times width in feet is the area no convention can spin. Cross-check against the registry/fard’s recorded measurements, and for anything significant, a surveyor’s demarcation before payment — boundary walls in older areas routinely disagree with documents by feet that cost lakhs.
Covered area (construction) is conventionally quoted in square feet directly and shouldn’t pass through marla conversion at all — a "10 marla house with 2,800 sq ft covered" mixes a land unit and a construction unit deliberately kept separate. Conflating them is how listings inflate.
The traditional ladder runs 9 sarsai to a marla (one sarsai ≈ 30.25 sq ft standard), surviving in rural fards and older urban documents. Odd recorded areas like "4 marla 5 sarsai" convert exactly through the sarsai — registry clerks still compute in them even where listings never mention the unit.
The 272.25 standard travels nationally; the 225 convention is strongest in Punjab’s planned urban schemes. Karachi quotes plots in square yards (gaz) as often as marlas, and KPK and rural areas lean traditional. The unit ecosystem is regional — the dimensions in feet are the only universal language.
Whatever the assessing document already uses — excise records carry their own recorded areas, and consistency with the registry matters more than convention preference. Disputes about assessed area argue from the registered dimensions, converted explicitly, never from marketing labels.