Land Size - What is a Manzana?
Jan 30th, 2008 by Kevin
In the US acreage is still the most common measure of land size. In other countries of the world the metric system is prolific and many of these countries are in various stages of use between acres and hectares (a hectare metric unit of land measurement and = aprox 2.47 acres). However, in Nicaragua (and in many other parts of central and South America) when you begin to look at land parcels, you will likely find a lot of property measured in what a called a Manzana.
So what exactly is a manzana? It turns out that the word manzana means apple, which may seem odd, but but the unit is probably related more to manzanar, which mean orchard.
A manzana is the area of a square 100 varas (The word vara means stick or pole and varies between 32 and 34 inches), but since the length of a vara can vary, so can that of a manzana based on which country it is used. In reality, since much of the size estimates in these countries are initially inexact, this variation will not really matter.
In the end, all you really need to remember is that a manzana is approx 1.73 acres. Keeping that in mind will help you compare apples to apples (no pun intended) when you are comparing land/price offerings.
