Square Square Footage Calculator
Enter your measurements below to get the area of a square in square feet, square metres, square yards and acres. The live preview draws the square to scale as you type, labelled on a measured grid, and you can drag its handles to change the measurements.
Area = Side × Side
Live scale preview
The shape is drawn to scale and relabelled as you type.
An example to start from. Drag a handle or type a measurement and it becomes yours.
Worked example
A square with side length 14 ft works out at 196 square feet.
| Unit | Area |
|---|---|
| sq ft | 196 |
| m² | 18.21 |
| sq yd | 21.78 |
| sq in | 28,224 |
| acres | 0.0045 |
When to use the square calculator
A square is a rectangle with one measurement instead of two, so this calculator only asks for the side length. It suits paving slabs, square patios, sheds, tile modules, square rooms and any layout planned on a grid — and it is the quickest way to work backwards from an area, since the square root of the square footage is the side length.
Check that it really is square
Because there is only one input, an error in that one reading goes straight into the answer with nothing to catch it. Always measure the adjacent side too. If a room reads 14 ft one way and 13 ft 9 in the other, it is not square, and the honest answer comes from the rectangle calculator instead — 14 × 13.75 is 192.5 sq ft, three and a half square feet less than 14 × 14 would suggest.
For a genuinely critical layout, check the diagonals as well. In a true square both diagonals are equal, at about 1.414 times the side length; a 14 ft square measures 19 ft 9 in corner to corner. Unequal diagonals mean the corners are not at right angles, however well the sides match.
Square feet and feet squared
The two phrases get used interchangeably, but they do not mean the same thing when read strictly. Four square feet is an area of four one-foot squares. Four feet squared is a square measuring 4 ft on each side — sixteen square feet. If a quote or a listing says a space is “12 feet squared”, it is worth asking which was meant before ordering anything.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the square footage of a square room?
Multiply the side length by itself. A room 14 ft on each side is 14 × 14 = 196 square feet. Because a square only has one measurement to get wrong, it is worth checking the other side as well — a room that reads 14 ft one way and 13 ft 9 in the other is not square, and should be calculated as a rectangle instead.
What is the difference between square feet and feet squared?
In everyday use they mean the same thing — an area. Written strictly, though, they are different: 4 square feet is an area of four one-foot squares, while 4 feet squared is a square measuring 4 ft on each side, which is 16 square feet. If someone quotes you a room as '12 feet squared', ask which they mean, because the two readings differ by a factor of 12.
How do I find the side length from a square footage figure?
Take the square root. A 400 square foot square room measures 20 ft on each side, because 20 × 20 = 400. This is a useful check when someone quotes you an area but not the dimensions: a 2,000 square foot house, if it were a single square, would be about 44.7 ft on a side.
Other shapes
A space that is not a square can nearly always be split into two or three of these and added together.
- Circle calculator
- L-Shaped Room calculator
- Parallelogram calculator
- Rectangle calculator
- Circle Sector calculator
- Trapezoid calculator
- Triangle calculator
- Triangle (Three Sides) calculator
To add several spaces into one figure, use the multi-room square footage calculator. To turn this area into an order quantity, see the material calculators.
New to the math? The square footage formula for every shape explains the calculation behind each of these tools.