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Denmark
premetric units of land area

Two distinct systems of units were used simultaneously for Danish agricultural land. To add to the confusion, most of the names of the units in the two systems were identical. One system (arealenhed) was strictly geometrical. The other was a seed measure of land, based on the land's productivity. So, for example, in the cadastral survey of 1683, a piece of land was first measured in tønde land, and then its value in tønde hartkorn was determined. One tønde land might be worth as little as 2 tønde hartkorn, while the most fertile tønde land was rated at 20 tønde hartkorn. Thus, because they measure different things, no conversion factor relating the two systems is possible, because it is impossible to assign a geometric area to the tønde hartkorn.

However, by the second half of the 19ᵗʰ century commentators regularly give an area for the tønde hartkorn and its subdivisions. The area originally specified for the tønde land (14,000 square alen) is assigned, not to the tønde hartkorn, but to the smaller tønde sædeland. According to one source (Klimpert's Lexikon, 2nd edition, page 386), an order of 20 January 1788 made the tønde hartkorn 2.83 hectares (5.66 in wooded areas), 1.935 ha in Bornholm, in the islands 5.5 ha, and in Jutland an average of 14.5 hectares. The 5.5 hectares  corresponds to later values.

arealenhed (area units)

*Before 1698, the rode = 6 alen, instead of 5, and so doesn't fit the chart for that period.

jordværedienhed (land value units)

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Last revised: 11 March 2011.