The unit of Nepal's hills
Nepal uses two traditional land systems split by geography: the bigha-kattha-dhur system in the flat Terai plains, and the ropani-aana-paisa-daam system in the hilly regions — including the Kathmandu Valley, Pokhara, and most district headquarters in the hills. Because the valley is where Nepal's most expensive real estate sits, the ropani and especially the aana are the units you will hear in almost every Kathmandu property conversation.
One ropani is exactly 5,476 square feet, a precise 74 ft × 74 ft square. That squared-number origin is no accident — the unit was historically tied to a 74-foot side length, which keeps survey math clean.
A base-four system
The ropani divides by fours: 16 aana per ropani, 4 paisa per aana, 4 daam per paisa — so a ropani contains 64 paisa or 256 daam. Land certificates (lalpurja) record areas as four numbers in that order: 2-6-1-2 means 2 ropani, 6 aana, 1 paisa, 2 daam. The base-four structure made equal division among heirs straightforward, which is exactly how valley plots became as small as they are today: a family ropani split among four children yields tidy 4-aana plots.
Our converter accepts the combined ropani-aana-paisa-daam format directly, so you can type a lalpurja figure as written and read the total in square feet, square meters, or any other unit.
Ropani in the metric era
Nepal's official records are metric — the survey department works in square meters and hectares — but deeds, prices, and family memory remain in ropani and aana. Kathmandu land prices are quoted per aana almost universally. The standard bridges: 1 ropani = 508.74 m², 1 aana = 31.80 m², and 1 hectare ≈ 19.66 ropani. For Terai comparisons, 1 Terai bigha ≈ 13.31 ropani. See the full Nepal guide for how the two systems fit together.