The pyeong, Korean unit of area
The pyeong is exactly 3.3058 square meters, the same area as the Japanese tsubo. It is the unit in which South Korea still talks about the size of a home.
That equality is no coincidence: the cadastre drawn up under Japanese colonial rule aligned the pyeong with the tsubo, and both are 400/121 of a square meter. South Korea made metric units compulsory in transactions on 1 July 2007, on pain of a fine, and habit outlived the law: a flat of 84 m² of private floor area is commonly called 34 pyeong, because the pyeong figure also counts the shared areas.
The pyeong in other units
| 1 pyeong | 0.00000330579 km² |
| 1 pyeong | 0.000330579 ha |
| 1 pyeong | 0.0330579 a |
| 1 pyeong | 3.30579 m² |
| 1 pyeong | 33,058 cm² |
| 1 pyeong | 0.00000127637 mi² |
| 1 pyeong | 0.000816877 ac |
| 1 pyeong | 35.5832 ft² |
| 1 pyeong | 5,124 in² |
| 1 pyeong | 3.95369 yd² |
| 1 pyeong | 3,305,785 mm² |
| 1 pyeong | 0.00330579 dunum |
| 1 pyeong | 1 tsubo |
| 1 pyeong | 0.000787092 feddan |
| 1 pyeong | 0.00206612 rai |
| 1 pyeong | 0.0188902 qirat |
| 1 pyeong | 0.0326751 guntha |
| 1 pyeong | 0.0816877 cent |
| 1 pyeong | 0.00653502 kanal |
Frequently asked questions
What do the standard Korean flat sizes come to?
The three common formats are 24, 34 and 45 pyeong, which correspond to 59, 84 and 114 square meters of private floor area. Those three metric figures are the ones the law requires on paper, and the ones the seller never says out loud.
Is the pyeong used for anything but housing?
For air conditioners above all: Korea sells them by the number of pyeong they cool, a 16-pyeong model being rated for 52.9 square meters. Land and office floor space are counted the same way.
How much is 34 pyeong in square meters and square feet?
112.4 square meters, that is 1,210 square feet, since one pyeong is 35.58 square feet. This is the sum expatriates are left to do: English-language listings in Seoul usually print the pyeong figure without converting it.