The jerib or djerib (
Persian: جریب;
Turkish: cerip) is a traditional unit of land measurement in the Middle East and southwestern Asia. It is a unit of area used to measure land holdings (
real property) in much the way that an
acre or
hectare are. Like most
traditional units of measure, the jerib originally varied substantially from one location to another. However, in the twentieth century, the jerib has been regionally, if not uniformly defined. In many countries where it was traditionally used, it is equated with the
hectare, for example in
Turkey and
Iran.[1][2] In Afghanistan, however, it is standardized at 2,000 square metres (0.49 acres).[2][3]
The jerib was roughly equivalent to the other customary land measures in south Asia and the Middle East, the
Indianbigha and the
Sumerianiku, varying between 1,600 and 3,600 square metres (0.40 and 0.89 acres). The word is probably derived from
Arabic.[4]
Historical
The royal enclosure at
Isfahan in Iran was named Hazar Jerib for the expanse of irrigated acreage, namely 1000 jeribs.[5][6]
^Miller, Norman N.; Spitzer, Manon L. and Appleton, Sheldon (1978) Faces of Change: Five Rural Societies in Transition: Bolivia, Kenya, Afghanistan, Taiwan, China Coast American Universities Field Staff, Wheelock Educational Resources, Lebanon, N.H., page 202,
ISBN0-88333-005-9
^de Bode, Clement Augustus (1856) "On the Races of the Southern Shores of the Caspian Sea" Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1848–1856), Vol. 4, pp. 155–175, page 160
^Curzon, George Nathaniel (1892) Persia and the Persian Question Volume 2, Longmans, Green and Co., London,
page 47,
OCLC64845134
See also
bigha, roughly equivalent land measure in
Nepal and northern
India