In Haryana and Indian Punjab a marla is 272.25 square feet. The chain behind it is a survey one: a karam is 5½ feet, a square karam is a sarsaai, nine sarsaai make a marla, 20 marla make a kanal, and 8 kanal make an acre. Run that back and the acre lands exactly on 43,560 square feet, which is how we know the 272.25 is not a rounding.
The sizes you will actually see
- 1 marla — 272.25 sq ft.
- 5 marla — 1,361.25 sq ft, the standard small plot.
- 10 marla — 2,722.5 sq ft.
- 1 kanal (20 marla) — 5,445 sq ft, which is also exactly 5 guntha.
- 8 kanal — one acre.
The Pakistani marla is a different number
Across the border the word means two things at once. Old revenue records and rural land use the same 272.25 square feet; the planned housing schemes of Lahore, and DHA and Bahria developments generally, use a rounded 25 square yards — 225 square feet, about 17% less. A “10 marla house” is 2,722 square feet on one side of that line and 2,250 on the other.
We have not put the Pakistani marla in the converter yet. The rules that set it are Punjab’s own housing-scheme regulations, and every government copy of them we tried was unreachable on 21 September 2026; property-site copies of a number are not a source for a unit this expensive to get wrong. When the document can be opened, the option appears here with its citation.