Ropani Aana Converter NepalEvery Nepali land unit, both ways.

Two systems, one common unit

Nepal measures land in two parallel systems. The hills and the Kathmandu Valley use ropani-aana-paisa-daam, where each unit splits into 16, then 4, then 4. The Terai uses bigha-kattha-dhur, where each unit splits into 20. Neither system converts neatly into the other, but both are fixed multiples of the square foot, so the converter turns whatever you enter into square feet first and then restates it in every unit.

The square-foot figures are the standard ones, as published in Global IME Bank's land conversion table and used in the land units guide. The cross-system ratios follow from them: one bigha is 13.31 ropani, one kattha is about 10.65 aana, and one aana is about 1.88 dhur.

Reading a lalpurja

A lalpurja in the hill system records area as four numbers: ropani, aana, paisa, daam. A plot written 0-8-2-1 is no ropani, 8 aana, 2 paisa and 1 daam, which is 2,930.52 sq ft, a little over half a ropani. Choose the ropani-aana-paisa-daam input, enter the four numbers, and the converter gives the square feet, the square metres and the Terai equivalent. Going the other way, enter square feet or square metres and it returns the four-number form, keeping two decimals on the daam so nothing is silently rounded away.

The base-16 trap

The costliest mistake in Nepali land arithmetic is treating ropani as a decimal unit. One aana is 1/16 of a ropani, or 0.0625, not 0.1. So 3.5 ropani is 3 ropani 8 aana, not 3 ropani 5 aana, and 10 aana is 0.625 ropani, not 1. A deed written 1-10-0-0 is 1.625 ropani, or 8,898.5 sq ft. Whenever the converter shows a decimal ropani with a fraction, it says so in the sentence under the results, because that is the number most likely to be misread on a listing or a loan form.

Why a ropani is 508.74 m² here

A foot is exactly 0.3048 metres, so a square foot is 0.09290304 m² and a ropani is 508.74 m². Many tables, Global IME's included, print 508.72 for the ropani, which comes from rounding the square foot to 0.0929 m², while printing an exact 6,772.63 m² for the bigha. The gap is 0.02 m² per ropani, irrelevant on a plot, but using one exact factor everywhere is what keeps the two systems consistent when you convert from one to the other.

Comparing prices across units

Land in Kathmandu is quoted per aana and land in the Terai per kattha or per dhur, so two prices are comparable only after both are in the same unit. Because an aana is about 1.88 dhur, Rs 4 lakh per dhur is about Rs 7.5 lakh per aana. Square feet is the neutral ground: Rs 22 lakh per aana is about Rs 6,430 per sq ft, and Rs 35 lakh per kattha is about Rs 960 per sq ft, or roughly Rs 3.3 lakh per aana. Size works the same way: a 10-dhur plot is 1,822.5 sq ft, about 5.3 aana, a third larger than the 4-aana plot it might be compared with. The same arithmetic tells you what a per-aana construction budget means for your plot, and what the registration fee will be once you have a total value.

What a converter cannot tell you

This converts the area you type; it cannot confirm that a plot actually measures what the seller says. Check the area on the lalpurja against the cadastral map and the field measurement before any bayana, as the lalpurja checklist lays out. Older units that still turn up in rural deeds, such as khetmuri and matomuri, are not included here.