Bangladesh inherited its land measurement system from centuries of Mughal and British-era administration, long before the metric system arrived. Local units like Katha, Bigha, and Kani were defined by regional custom and survey practice — and they never fully disappeared, because they're still the units written into old deeds, mouza maps, and everyday property conversations.

Decimal and Shotangsho (শতাংশ) are the English and Bengali names for the same unit — and it's the backbone of the whole system, because it's exactly 1/100th of an Acre.

These are the units you'll hear most often in day-to-day property conversations, listings, and older deeds:

In Sylhet and parts of the surrounding northeast, land has traditionally been measured in an entirely separate nested system, nothing to do with Katha or Bigha:

• 1 Kani — the largest unit in this system, commonly cited as roughly 40 Decimal.
• 1 Kani = 20 Gonda
• 1 Gonda = 4 Kora
• 1 Kora = 4 Kranta
• 1 Kranta = 4 Til (the smallest unit)

For engineering drawings, legal documents, and formal valuation reports, Bangladesh also uses the standard imperial and metric units:

• Property registration (দলিল): deeds must state area precisely — a wrong Katha-to-Decimal conversion can create a mismatch between the deed and the actual land record, causing problems years later.
• Mutation and land tax: the Land Office records and assesses tax based on Decimal; an incorrect conversion from a vernacular unit can lead to an incorrect tax assessment.
• Bank loan collateral valuation: banks typically require area in Decimal or square feet for valuation — a conversion error can under- or over-state the collateral's value.
• Comparing listings: one listing quoted in Katha and another in Decimal can look very different in price-per-unit until you convert both to the same base — easy to misjudge a deal otherwise.
• Construction and architectural planning: building plan approval and floor-area ratio calculations are done in square feet/meters, so an inaccurate starting conversion throws off every downstream calculation.

Rather than doing the Decimal-to-Katha-to-Bigha arithmetic by hand every time, amarConsultant's free Land Area Converter converts instantly between Decimal, Katha, Bigha, Acre, square feet, square meters, and more:

• Type a value in any supported unit and get every other unit's equivalent immediately
• No manual multiplication, no risk of a misplaced decimal point
• Useful for comparing listings, checking a deed's figures, or preparing documents for registration or a bank loan application
• Free to use, no signup required

• Assuming "Katha" always means the same thing. A Dhaka Katha and a rural mouza Katha can differ significantly in size — always confirm the local convention.
• Mixing units within one calculation. Adding "3 Bigha + 5 Katha + 10 Decimal" directly, without converting each to the same base unit first, produces a meaningless total.
• Trusting a single online figure for Sylhet-region Kani without local verification. The Kani-Gonda system has more source-to-source variation than the Katha-Bigha-Decimal system — confirm locally for anything transactional.
• Rounding too early. Small rounding errors in square-feet conversions compound quickly over large plots — keep full precision until the final figure.
• Not cross-checking against the Decimal figure already on the deed or khatian. If it's there, it's your most reliable anchor — use it to validate any conversion you calculate yourself.

Measure Right, Register Right

Whether you're comparing listings, preparing documents for registration, or just trying to make sense of an old family deed, getting your land units right is the first step toward getting everything that follows right — valuation, tax, and legal paperwork included. Use the free converter for the math, and bring in a land/property professional for anything with real money on the line.