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A 'dunam' or 'dönüm', 'dunum', 'donum' is a unit of area used in the Ottoman Empire and still used, in various standardized versions, in many countries formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. It was defined as "forty standard paces in length and breadth",^[1] but varied considerably from place to place.
The name 'dönüm', from the Ottoman Turkish ضنمق / ''dönmek'' (to turn) appears to be a calque of the Byzantine stremma and had the same size. It was likely adopted by the Ottomans from the Byzantines in Mysia-Bithynia.^[2]
Versions include:

★ In Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey it is 1,000 m². Before the end of the Ottoman Empire and during the early years of the British Mandate of Palestine, the size of a dönüm was 919.3 square meters, but in 1928 the 'metric dunam' of 1,000 square meters was adopted, and this is still used.^[3]

★ Northern Cyprus, the donum is 14,400 square feet (1,337.8 m²).

★ In Iraq it is 2,500 m².

★ Other countries using a dunam of some size include Libya, Syria and the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

★ The Greek stremma has approximately the same size, and the word has the same meaning ('turning').
The dunam is not an SI unit. The SI unit of area is the square metre (m²).

Contents

Conversions

References

External links

Conversions

A metric dunam is equal to:

★ 1 000 square metres (exactly)

★ 0.1 hectares (exactly)

★ 1 decare (exactly)

★ 10 ares (exactly)

★ 0.247 105 381 acres (approx)

★ 1 195.990 05 square yards (approx)

★ 10 763.910 4 square feet (approx)

References

1. V.L. Ménage, Review of Speros Vryonis, Jr. ''The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century'', Berkeley, 1971; in ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' (University of London) '36':3 (1973), pp. 659-661. at JSTOR (subscription required)
2. Ménage, ''op.cit.''
3. Roza I.M. El-Eini, ''Mandated Landscape'', Routledge, 2006, p''xxiii''.

External links

★ Foreign Weights and Measures Formerly in Common Use

★ Dictionary of units

★ Variable donums in Turkey

★ Summary based on UN handbook