| square foot | |
| Standard: | Imperial, United States customary units |
| Quantity: | area |
| Symbol: | ft2 |
| Symbol2: | sq ft |
| Units1: | Imperial/US |
| Units2: | SI units |
The square foot (; abbreviated sq ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2 and ⏍) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non-SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Ghana, Liberia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Hong Kong. It is defined as the area of a square with sides of 1 foot.
Although the pluralization is regular in the noun form, when used as an adjective, the singular is preferred. So, an apartment measuring 700 square feet could be described as a 700 square-foot apartment. This corresponds to common linguistic usage of foot.
The square foot unit is commonly used in real estate.[1] Dimensions are generally taken with a laser device, the latest in a long line of tools used to gauge the size of apartments[2] or other spaces. Real estate agents often measure straight corner-to-corner, then deduct non-heated spaces, and add heated spaces whose footprints exceed the end-to-end measurement.[3]
1 square foot conversion to other units of area: