Barrel of land

A barrel in a Swedish museum.

A barrel of land (Danish: tønde land,[1] Norwegian: tønneland,[2] Swedish: tunnland,[3] Finnish: tynnyrinala) is a Scandinavian unit of area. The word may originate from the area of fields one could seed with a barrel of grain seeds.[1] The acre is the equivalent anglosaxon unit. Because the barrel sizes varied by country, the area unit does too. One barrel can be approximated as half a hectare.

Per country

Denmark

In Denmark the tønde was used as an official area unit until the introduction of the metric system in 1907.[1] A tønde was divided in 8 skæpper.[4]

Norway

A tønneland was divided in 4 mål. Nowadays a mål corresponds to 1,000 square meters in everyday speech.

Sweden

The unit was officially surveyed and standardized in the 1630s. One tunnland was divided in 56 kannland, 32 kappland, 6 skäppland or 2 lopsland.[5]

Finland

In Finland the unit was officially defined in 1633. One tynnyrinala corresponded to 32 kapanala or 2 panninala.

In modern units

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "tønde". Gyldendal - Den Store Danske.
  2. "tønne – arealenhet". Store Norske Leksikon.
  3. "tunnland". Nationalencyklopedin AB.
  4. Rejnholdt Kristensen, Evald (1920). Danmark Og Det Danske Folk. A.H. Anderson. p. 471.
  5. "kappland". Nationalencyklopedin AB.
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