Square foot

The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft²; also denoted by '²) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non-SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Liberia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore and the United Kingdom. It is defined as the area of a square with sides of 1 foot.

Comparison of 1 square foot with some Imperial and metric units of area

Although the pluralisation is regular in the noun form, when used as an adjective, the singular is preferred. So, a flat measuring 700 square feet could be described as a 700 square-foot flat. This corresponds to common linguistic usage of foot.

Anyone searching for an apartment, buying a house, or preparing to acquire office space must get very used to this form of measurement.[1] Dimensions are generally taken with a laser device, the latest in a long line of tools used to gauge the size of apartments[2] or other spaces. Real estate agents often measure straight corner-to-corner, then deduct non-heated spaces, and add heated spaces whose footprints exceed the end-to-end measurement.[3]