GazzBC

Areas

Hi, thanks for your feedback. You wrote: "those of us involved in agriculture and agricultural land preservation normally converse in hectares or acres."

If Wikipedia were an in-house farmers magazine, I would agree with you. But it is merely a general encyclopedia and assumes no domain knowledge. We get similar suggestions when people say that Wikipedia should use terms that are well-known within domains such as 'lakhs', 'quintals', 'dunams'.

People are more familiar with distance in metres and kilometres, so extrapolating to m² and km² is easier. Few people can visualise 400 hectares but many can visualise 4 km² as 2 km by 2 km or 4 individual 1 km² squares. In metric countries, the grid squares on maps used by ordinary people are in square kilometres. I am a non-specialist myself. The value 47000 km² is imaginable as an area somewhat larger than 200 by 200 km. I know of places 200 km away and can imagine that as a square. But I have no reference for '47 million hectares', it means nothing other than a big number.

Imagine this experiment: Take somebody to the top of a hill. First point out an area of land. Get them to estimate the area in hectares, square kilometres or square metres. Which do you think would be more successful for the average (non-farmer) Wikipedia reader? Secondly, state a value in hectares and get them to point at the area of land it represents and repeat the process with a value in square kilometres. Again, which do you think would be more successful for the average Wikipedia reader?

That is my rationale and I hope it sounds reasonable to you. However, as with all Wikipedia matters, feel free to amend the article in any way you think best. If that means dual units with one in brackets, then it seems a bit of a duplication but it is entirely up to you. Thanks and keep up the good work.bobblewik 19:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)