A square mil (abbreviated as sq mil or mil²) is a unit of area measurement used primarily in the United States for very small areas, especially in the context of electrical engineering and wire gauge measurements. One square mil is equal to one square thousandth of an inch or one square mil (0.000001 square inches).
In terms of modern metric units, one square mil is approximately equal to 6.4516 square micrometers (µm²) because there are 25.4 micrometers in one thousandth of an inch (1 mil).
Square mils are often used when specifying the cross-sectional area of wires, particularly in electrical and electronic engineering. For example, the American Wire Gauge (AWG) system uses square mils to represent the cross-sectional area of wires, with smaller wire sizes having fewer square mils, and larger wire sizes having more square mils.
A square perch, often referred to as a "square pole" or simply "perch," is an obsolete unit of land area measurement. It was historically used in some English-speaking countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, for land surveying and property descriptions.
One square perch is equivalent to one square rod or one square pole. In terms of modern measurements, one square perch is approximately equal to 25.29285264 square meters (m²) or 0.00625 acres.
Like other obsolete units of land area measurement, the square perch has largely been replaced by more standardized systems of measurement, such as square meters and square feet, in modern times. It is rarely encountered in contemporary land transactions or legal documents.