Dunam

A dunam (Ottoman Turkish: دونم‎; Turkish: dönüm), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount of land that could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a day. The legal definition was "forty standard paces in length and breadth", but its actual area varied considerably from place to place, from a little more than 900 m² in Palestine to around 2500 m² in Iraq.

The unit is still in use in many areas previously ruled by the Ottomans, although the new or metric dunam has been redefined as exactly one decare (1000 m²), in line with the modern Greek royal stremma.

History

The name dönüm, from the Ottoman Turkish dönmek (دونمك, "to turn") appears to be a calque of the Byzantine Greek stremma and had the same size. It was likely adopted by the Ottomans from the Byzantines in Mysia-Bithynia.

The Dictionary of Modern Greek defines the old Ottoman stremma as approximately 1,270 m², but Costas Lapavitsas used the value of 1,600 m² for the region of Naoussa in the early 20th century.