Killa (ਕਿੱਲਾ) is the Punjabi word for one acre of land: 8 kanal, 160 marla or 43,560 square feet. It is the standard unit Punjabi farmers and land records use for farmland, and 25 killa together make a murabba.
How it's used
- 1ਸਾਡੇ ਕੋਲ ਪਿੰਡ ਵਿੱਚ ਬਾਰਾਂ ਕਿੱਲਾ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਹੈWe have twelve killa of land in the village. a family landholding
- 2ਇਸ ਸਾਲ ਉਸ ਨੇ ਤਿੰਨ ਕਿੱਲਾ ਕਣਕ ਬੀਜੀ ਹੈThis year he has sown wheat on three killa. planning farm work by the killa
- 3ਇੱਕ ਕਿੱਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ 160 ਮਰਲੇ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨThere are 160 marla in one killa. the basic conversion
Show 1 more example
- 4ਪਟਵਾਰੀ ਨੇ ਜਮਾਬੰਦੀ ਵਿੱਚ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਕਿੱਲਿਆਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਲਿਖੀ ਹੈThe patwari has recorded the land in killa in the jamabandi. jamabandi: the land record
ਕਿੱਲਾ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿੱਚ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਮਾਪਣ ਦੀ ਮੁੱਖ ਇਕਾਈ ਹੈ ਅਤੇ ਇੱਕ ਕਿੱਲਾ ਇੱਕ ਏਕੜ ਦੇ ਬਰਾਬਰ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ ਇੱਕ ਕਿੱਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ 8 ਕਨਾਲ ਜਾਂ 160 ਮਰਲੇ ਹੁੰਦੇ ਹਨ ਅਤੇ ਇਸ ਦਾ ਖੇਤਰਫ਼ਲ 43,560 ਵਰਗ ਫੁੱਟ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ ਕਿਸਾਨ, ਪਟਵਾਰੀ ਅਤੇ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਦੇ ਸੌਦੇ ਕਰਨ ਵਾਲੇ ਅੱਜ ਵੀ ਖੇਤ ਦੀ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਕਿੱਲਿਆਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੀ ਗਿਣਦੇ ਹਨ
Killa (ਕਿੱਲਾ), pronounced KIL-laa, is the Punjabi word for one acre of land: the standard field unit across Punjab. One killa equals 8 kanal, 160 marla or 43,560 square feet, and farmers, land records and property talk across both Punjabs still measure farmland in killa first, whatever the paperwork later converts it to in metric units.
What does killa mean in Punjabi?
A killa is exactly one acre. In the Punjab revenue system it is a rectangle of 36 karam by 40 karam: with a karam of 5.5 feet, that is 198 feet by 220 feet, which works out to 43,560 square feet or 4,840 square yards, about 4,047 square metres. When a Punjabi farmer says he owns twelve killa, he means twelve acres, no conversion needed.
The scale around it is tidy: 20 marla make a kanal, 8 kanal make a killa, and 25 killa make a murabba. Half a killa, 4 kanal, is also known in many areas as a bigha, though bigha sizes vary across India and the Punjab standard is the kanal-based one described here.
How big is a killa in square feet?
A standard killa is 43,560 square feet. Broken down the Punjabi way, that is 160 marla of 272.25 square feet each, or 8 kanal of 5,445 square feet each. Because older local measures differed in a few districts before standardisation, the figure in a land record always wins over the spoken one, but for consolidated Punjab land the 43,560 square feet killa is the rule.
How is killa used in everyday Punjabi?
Land is identity in a Punjabi village, and killa is its everyday currency. Families describe a harvest, a loan, a marriage match or a migration decision in killa: how many killa the family holds, how many were sold, how many a son in Canada has bought back. A farmer also plans work in killa, ordering seed, fertiliser and spray per killa, even when the packet prints its rates per acre.
Is a killa the same everywhere?
In Punjab, yes, because the acre it equals is fixed, but the words around it can mislead outsiders. Bigha, its half, has no single size across India. The karam behind the marla was also shorter in a few old, non-consolidated pockets, which slightly changed the small units there. In Punjabi speech, though, one killa, one acre, holds everywhere.
Related words
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