A dunam (Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) 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", but its actual area varied considerably from place to place, from a little more than 900 m<sup>2</sup> in Ottoman Palestine to around 2 500 m<sup>2</sup> in Iraq.

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 1 000 m<sup>2</sup>.

The Dictionary of Modern Greek defines the old Ottoman stremma as approximately , but Costas Lapavitsas used the value of for the region of Naoussa in the early 20th century.

Definition

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro

In Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Serbia the unit is called the () or (). In Bosnia and Herzegovina a (or ) equals . In the region of Leskovac, south Serbia, one dulum is equal to . In Albania it is called a or and is equal to .

Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, the () is used, which is an SI unit, literally meaning 10 ares.<!--is there also a traditional name?-->

Cyprus

In Cyprus, a donum is or 14400 square feet. In the Republic of Cyprus older Greek-Cypriots also still refer to the donum using the local Greek Cypriot dialect word σκάλες [skales], rather than the mainland Greek word stremma (equivalent to a decare). However, since 1986 officially Cyprus uses the square metre and the hectare.

A donum consists of 4 evleks, each of which consists of or 3.600 square feet.

Greece

In Greece, the old is called a "Turkish stremma", while today, a () or "royal stremma" is exactly one decare, like the metric .

Israel, Palestine and Turkey

In Israel, Palestine and Turkey, the dunam is , which is 1 decare. From the Ottoman period and through the early years of the British Mandate for Palestine, the size of a dunam was , but in 1928, the metric dunam of was adopted, and this is still used today in Israel and Palestine.

United Arab Emirates

The Dubai Statistics Center and Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi use the metric dunam (spelt as donum) for data relating to agricultural land use. One donum equals .

Variations

Other countries using a dunam of some size include Libya and Syria.

Similar units

The Byzantine Greek was the probable source of the Turkish unit. The (; Turkish , ) 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.

See also

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

References

  • Foreign Weights and Measures Formerly in Common Use
  • Dictionary of units
  • Variable donums in Turkey
  • Summary based on UN handbook