Pyeong to square meters

A pyeong (평) is 3.3058 square meters — or 35.58 square feet. It came from the size of two tatami-style floor mats.

Korea legally switched to square meters in 2007. Look for the ㎡ figure on official documents, leases and listings. Pyeong is still used in conversation. An apartment may be described as “32 pyeong” while the listing gives its exclusive area in square meters.

Check both the unit and the area type when comparing a listing with a contract.

Korean paperwork prints ㎡. On a keyboard, in a chat message or on an English listing you will see m2, m², sqm or square meters. All of them mean the same thing, so 84㎡ and 84 m2 describe the same area.

An estate agent may use any of these abbreviations in a message; the conversion is the same.

One pyeong is 35.58 sq ft, so multiply an area in pyeong by that figure to convert it to square feet. A 20 pyeong home is about 712 square feet, and the 84㎡ national size works out to 904 sq ft.

Going the other way, divide square feet by 35.58. A 1,000 sq ft apartment is 28.1 pyeong of floor area. Its advertised pyeong figure can be larger because the advertised figure counts your share of the corridors and lobby.

The calculator above works in ㎡, so convert once: square feet ÷ 10.76 gives you the value to enter in the square-meter field.

The difference is the area being measured. 25.41 pyeong is the direct conversion of 84㎡ — but the same flat is advertised as a 32-pyeong home. Neither number is wrong. They measure different things.

Exclusive area (전용면적) is the space behind your front door: rooms, kitchen, bathroom. This is the 84㎡ on the listing, and it describes the private floor area, separately from the shared space.

Supply area (공급면적) adds your share of the corridors, stairs and lobby. It is a bigger number, and dividing it by 3.3058 is where “32 pyeong” comes from.

Exclusive area divided by supply area is called the exclusive rate. It runs around 70–80% in apartments and can drop to 50–60% in an officetel — so the same supply area can correspond to different amounts of private space.

84㎡ is the default Korean family flat. Koreans call it the “national size” because so much of the country was built to it. Three rooms, two bathrooms, a living room.

59㎡ is the compact version — two or three small rooms, common for couples and small families. 39㎡ and below is common for studios and officetels, usually one room with a kitchenette.

Homes above 100㎡ provide more floor area, but room layout and price must be compared separately. Check the floor plan as well as the total area.

Do not compare a pyeong figure with a ㎡ figure. If one listing says 32 pyeong and another says 84㎡, check whether both describe exclusive area or supply area before converting.

Check which area a rent quote is based on. Two flats with the same supply area can differ by several square meters of actual living space.

Check an officetel’s exclusive area. A “20-pyeong officetel” can have less usable floor than a 15-pyeong apartment, because so much of the supply area is shared corridor.

For another Korean measurement used in paperwork, see the Korean age calculator. The Korean section also compares room area with the coverage area printed on appliances.