Square kilometres are not the same as kilometres square!

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

06 October 2024

The Cabinet Secretary for Mining was reported in the Business Daily of 30th September 2024 telling the National Assembly that the government has issued a licence to Simba Cement Co Ltd to mine limestone in Kilifi over an area covering “24.931 kilometres square”. On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with that statement. But, on closer interrogation, the reader is left wondering if this is an area that is square in shape and measuring 24.931km on each side or a piece of land where 24.931 squares measuring 1km by 1km can fit. The two are very different in size.

I posted this on X with a comment that there is a big difference between kilometres square and square kilometres and went on to explain that, in English, adjectives come before nouns. One of the readers of this column, Mr. Kimathi Mwirichia, corrected me noting that there are instances where the adjective comes after the noun, for example, in “Attorney General”.

This situation, however, is not one of those instances: when we say “24.931 kilometres square”, the word ‘kilometres’ is the adjective and ‘square’ is the noun. Therefore, that phrase means that the land is square is shape and each side measures 24.931km. I doubt highly that this is what the CS meant. It is very unlikely that the land in question is a square shape!

I think the cabinet secretary meant to say “24.931 square kilometres”. In this case, ‘square’ is the adjective and ‘kilometres’ is the noun. Therefore, this phrase means the land is equivalent 24.931 kilometres each of which is a square. In other words, it can fit 24.931 squares each measuring 1km by 1km.

We get a confirmation of this when we read farther in the story that the land measures 6,160 acres. This converts to 24.929 square kilometres. For comparison, a square measuring 24.931km on each side would be 153,700 acres!

For similar reasons, when we see a car engine labelled, say 1,500cc, we read it correctly as “1,500 cubic centimetres”. We never “1,500 centimetres cube”; that would be very wrong indeed.

Similarly, the capacity of shipping containers is quoted in cubic metres – so called “CBM” in the industry. Interestingly, Mr. Hassan Ali Joho, the CS who made the statement, is a major player in the shipping industry. The phrase “24.931 kilometres square” should have sounded awkward to him.