Dunam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum is a unit of area used in the Ottoman Empire and still used, in various standardized versions, in many countries formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. It was defined as "forty standard paces in length and breadth",[1] but varied considerably from place to place.
The name dönüm, from the Ottoman Turkish ضنمق / dönmek (to turn) appears to be a calque of the Byzantine stremma and had the same size. It was likely adopted by the Ottomans from the Byzantines in Mysia-Bithynia.[2] In Arabic, the word is spelled دونم (dūnam).
Versions include:
- In Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey it is 1,000 square metres (10,764 sq ft). Before the end of the Ottoman Empire and during the early years of the British Mandate of Palestine, the size of a dönüm was 919.3 square metres (9,895 sq ft), but in 1928 the metric dunam of 1000 square metres was adopted, and this is still used.[3]
- In Northern Cyprus the donum is 14,400 square feet (1,338 m2).
- In Iraq it is 2,500 m2 (26,910 sq ft).
- Other countries using a dunam of some size include Libya, Syria and the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
- The Greek stremma has approximately the same size, and the word has the same meaning ('turning').
The metric dunam is particularly useful in hydrological calculations as 1 dunam times 1 mm (a unit commonly used for measuring precipitation) equals exactly one cubic meter.
The dunam is not an SI unit. The SI unit of area is the square metre (m²).
[edit] Conversions
A metric dunam is equal to:
- 1,000 square metres (exactly)
- 0.1 hectares (exactly)
- 1 decare (exactly)
- 10 ares (exactly)
- 0.247105381 acres (approx)
- 1,195.99005 square yards (approx)
- 10,763.9104 square feet (approx)
[edit] References
- ^ V.L. Ménage, Review of Speros Vryonis, Jr. The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century, Berkeley, 1971; in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) 36:3 (1973), pp. 659-661. at JSTOR (subscription required)
- ^ Ménage, op.cit.
- ^ El-Eini, Roza I.M. (2006). "Currency and Measures". Mandated landscape: British imperial rule in Palestine, 1929-1948. Routledge. p. xxiii. ISBN 9780714654263. http://books.google.com/books?id=ekQOAAAAQAAJ&dq=El-Eini+%22Mandated+Landscape%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=Nqqy5AZ68a&sig=7a4faV6n_F9rSonfla0pC5wCGZA&hl=en&ei=xPz_SfHgJqXhtge_lJWQBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPR23,M1. Retrieved on 2009-05-05.
