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LandMeasure

How do I measure a field in hectares with my iPhone?

Set the area unit to Hectares (ha), open Measure > Measure Area and tap each corner of the field on the Satellite map, or walk the edge with GPS. A five-corner arable field comes out at 3.57 ha with a perimeter of 737 m, with the area updating live after every tap.

4 min read · Updated 2026-09-07

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The field was a lopsided pentagon: a straight track along one side, a hedge that kinks once, and a ditch cutting the far corner — the kind of shape where guessing gives wildly different answers. Five taps settled it.

The same five corners, read in LandMeasure (app formula, computed)
What the panel showsValue
Area in Hectares (ha)3.57 ha
Area in Square Meters (m²)35,650.1 m²
Area in Acres (ac)8.81 ac
Perimeter737 m (sides 167.3, 184.9, 147.1, 128.3 and 109.4 m)
Points5

Those are flat map figures. If the field climbs a slope, the ground you drill is a little bigger than 3.57 ha; the app does not correct for that.

Tap it on Satellite or walk the headland?

On a field this size, tracing on satellite comes first, every time. The edges are clear from above, it takes under a minute, and it can be done from the kitchen table. Walking is for edges you cannot see on the imagery: a hedge that overhangs the crop, a boundary inside woodland, or a field the satellite photo shows before it was split.

Walking also carries a number you should read. The panel adds a GPS margin line worked out from the phone's accuracy and the perimeter. For this field it is ± 1,105.5 m² at ±3 m, ± 1,474 m² (0.15 ha) at ±4 m and ± 2,948 m² (0.29 ha) at ±8 m. So with a mediocre fix along a tall hedge, "3.57 ha" really means somewhere between about 3.28 and 3.86 ha.

GPS margin on the 3.57 ha field by GPS accuracy (perimeter × accuracy ÷ 2)
GPS badgeGPS marginShare of the area
±3m, 3 green bars± 0.11 ha3.1 %
±4m, 3 green bars± 0.15 ha4.1 %
±8m, 2 orange bars± 0.29 ha8.3 %

Steps in LandMeasure

  1. Open Settings > Units and set Area to Hectares (ha). Every saved field re-displays in the new unit if you change it later.
  2. On the Map tab, tap the round map button and pick Satellite (or Hybrid if you want road names to find the field).
  3. Tap Measure > Measure Area. With no project selected, the New Project sheet opens first: give it the field's name and tap Create.
  4. Zoom in until one corner fills a good part of the screen, tap it, pan along the edge and tap the next corner. Go round in order.
  5. Missed a kink in the hedge? Long-press on that side to insert a corner there, or drag a white handle to move one.
  6. Tap the green checkmark. The field is saved and its area shows in Projects.

Walking it instead

Same start, then tap the walking-figure button in the bottom toolbar and walk the headland at a normal pace. The phone can go in your pocket: recording carries on with the screen locked. Back at the start, tap the stop button, then the checkmark.

Walk Mode only keeps fixes of 10 m or better, so along a dense hedge or under trees you may see the line jump straight across a stretch. That is the filter throwing bad fixes away, not a bug. If the gap matters, long-press on that side after you stop to insert the missing corner by hand, before the checkmark. Tapped and walked points can live in the same shape while it is still open.

What the free version does and does not do

  • Free: measuring by tapping and by walking, every unit, all three map styles, saved projects. Ads show in the free version, but not on the Map screen.
  • One measurement per project in the free version. A farm with several fields means one project per field, and the Projects tab caps active projects at 3. LandMeasure Pro adds Unlimited Measurements, so one project can hold every field and show a Total Area.
  • The PDF Report (totals in ha, m² and ac, a map picture and a table) and GPX, KML, GeoJSON and CSV export are Pro. A rewarded video gives one vector export from the Map tab when one is available, never the PDF.
  • A finished field cannot be reopened for editing. Fix it before the checkmark or measure it again.
  • No parcel data, no import of field boundaries, no slope correction.

Getting a hectare figure from the satellite view before driving out is the quickest check. Walking the same field with GPS afterward and comparing against the GPS margin line shows whether the two numbers actually disagree, or just look like it.

Questions and answers

How is farm land measured?
Legally, by a surveyor or from the official register. For day-to-day work, farmers trace the field on aerial imagery or walk the edge with GPS, which is what LandMeasure does on an iPhone or iPad. Both give the flat area seen from above.
How big is a hectare compared to an acre?
One hectare is 10,000 m², which is 2.47 acres. One acre is 4,046.9 m², or 0.4 ha. In the app you only change Settings > Units > Area; the saved field does not change, only the number shown.
How do I figure out how many acres a field is?
Trace its corners on the satellite map with Measure Area and set the unit to Acres (ac). The five-corner field above reads 8.81 ac, the same shape as 3.57 ha.
Can I measure several fields and add them up?
Yes with Pro: put every field in one project and the project shows Total Area and the number of Polygons. The free version holds one measurement per project, so you would add the fields up yourself.

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