In a couple of recent blog posts I have written about unconventional units – such as boulders to measure mass or volume, and football pitches and Wales to measure area.
I’m delighted to report another use of an unconventional measure, and this time from the esteemed body that is the Office for National Statistics.
In a recent blog post they discuss the floor space of houses and flats. They tell us the median floorspace of a house in England and Wales is 99 square metres, and that of a flat is 43 square metres.
But what does 99 m2 look like to you? Do you have a real, tangible concept of what that measurement means?
I don’t.
But helpfully, the nation’s official statisticians have recognised this and compared the floor span of a house in England to about 9 car parking spaces, and that of a flat to 4 car parking spaces.
(From the data given, you can deduce that a car parking space can be approximated to 11 square metres.)
Everyone probably has a good sense of the size of an average car parking space, so a useful additional unconventional unit to add to our collection.