Haiti Land Measurement - 'Carreau De Terre' and Centieme Explained

In Haiti, the 'Carreau' is a unit of area used to measure land. One Carreau of land in Haiti is equivalent to 1.29 hectares or 3.18 acres of land.


Land For Sale in Haiti

I used to think that 'Carreau' translated into 'Acre' in English... FALSE! FALSE! FALSE!

After publishing article Land in Haiti - What is a Centieme? What is a 50 par 100? I decided to dig a little based on the comments that were coming in (thanks by the way to all who contributed)

Here's what I found out about 'carreau de terre' and land measurement in Haiti

Where does the term Carreau come from?

Hmmm... wap fè les 100 pas?... Growing up in Haiti, you probably heard old folks talking about 'faire les 100 pas' to mean that you are just walking around. Believe it or not, 'Les 100 Pas' is directly linked to the purchase of land in Haiti.

Since the 19th century, when people were buying and in Haiti, they would walk "100 pas" (one hundred Haitian paces) on each side and that was considered "1 Carrreau de terre" (one carreau of land)

'1 pas' (one pace) in Haiti is 3 1/2 pieds metrique (French for metric foot). This is where it gets complicated because one metric foot (pied metrique), which is now obsolete (since 1837), was defined as one third of a meter. Not the same as the foot in the U.S. measuring system which is one third of a yard.

Actually, it's not that much... 1 meter = 1.09361 yards

What is a Centieme of land in Haiti?

If you divide one carreau of land in Haiti into 100 pieces, each piece is called one centieme

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All Comments (24)

Land Measurements Haiti says...

Un Carreau de terre en Haiti équivaut à 1,29 hectare de terre.

128 hectares de terres sont aproximativement 99,2 carreau de

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Monique says...

Combien vaut le centième terre en

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Djman10 says...

Correction: Actually, "faire les 100 pas" means to pace back and forth (as when frustrated or in deep thoughts).

It does not mean to walk around

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Doph says...

5 centieme?

know that 1 centieme or 1/100 is equal to 129 square meter.

So for 5 centieme you multiply 5 x 129. The total will be
645 square meter.

NB. Do not confuse square meter and square foot. 1 square meter is 10.7639 square foot
your 645 square meter is equal to (645 X 10.7639) 6,649.72 square meter in US mesurement.

It is be a nice piece of

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Nelaton Zephirin says...

not to clear how to convert my 66/100 land into feet or

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Haitian says...

3785 Sqft = 351.63 Squared meter = 2.72 centieme

1 carreau = 12900 sq

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Jenkins says...

I'm planning on buying a land in Haiti to build a house but I think I'll needs 3785 square feet of land to do the job. How many carreau is

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Hugues says...

129.
Pas 128...

Arpenteur sa'a sou

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Hugues says...

6 x 129 square meters = 774 square meters = 0.19 acres = < 1 acre

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Hugues says...

You're crazy.

You will lose your money, and b possibly your life.

If you have money and time to waste, give them in charity directly to the miserable ppeople on the

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