Dunam

A dunam (Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: دونم; Turkish: dönüm; Hebrew: דונם Yiddish: דונאםcode: yid promoted to code: yi ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount of land that could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a day. The legal definition was "forty standard paces in length and breadth",^[1] but its actual area varied considerably from place to place, from a little more than 900 square metres (9,700 sq ft) in Ottoman Palestine to around 2,500 square metres (27,000 sq ft) in Iraq.^[2][3]

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The unit is still in use in many areas previously ruled by the Ottomans, although the new or metric dunam has been redefined as exactly one decare (1,000 square metres (11,000 sq ft)), which is 1/10 hectare (1/10 × 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft)), like the modern Greek royal stremma.^[3]

The name dönüm, from the Ottoman Turkish dönmek (دونمك, "to turn"), appears to be a calque of the Byzantine Greek stremma and had the same size. It was likely adopted by the Ottomans from the Byzantines in Mysia-Bithynia.^[4]

The Dictionary of Modern Greek defines the old Ottoman stremma as approximately 1,270 square metres (13,700 sq ft),^[5] but Costas Lapavitsas used the value of 1,600 square metres (17,000 sq ft) for the region of Naoussa in the early 20th century.^[6]

Other countries using a dunam of some size include Libya and Syria.^{[citation needed]}

A metric dunam is equal to:^{[citation needed]}

• 1,000 square metres (exactly)^[12]
• 10 ares (exactly)
• 1 decare (exactly)
• 0.1 hectares (exactly)^[12]
• 0.001 square kilometres (exactly)
• 0.247105381 acres (approx)
• 1,195.99005 square yards (approx)
• 10,763.9104 square feet (approx)

The Byzantine Greek stremma was the probable source of the Turkish unit. The zeugarion (Turkish çift) was a similar unit derived from the area plowed by a team of oxen in a day. The English acre was originally similar to both units in principle, although it developed separately.^{[citation needed]}

• Orders of magnitude (area) for further comparisons
• Conversion of units
• Feddan, a similar non-SI unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan, and Syria
• Resm-i dönüm, a land tax based on the area of a farm