With roots tracing as far back as Anglo-Saxon England, the official standard of measures for the United States features customary units. These include the inch, foot, yard and mile. Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other countries once used this traditional system of measures as well. In 1875, however, 17 nations agreed to adopt the metric system as their official standard, in hopes of unifying the world's standards of measurement and fostering greater accuracy and scope.
Apart from Burma and Liberia, the United States remains the last industrialized nation to employ customary units as its official standard. Even so, many U.S. industries, including branches of aviation, medicine and science, have already shifted in large part to the metric system. Additionally, numerous consumer products offer both customary and metric measurements on packaging. As a result of the existence of parallel measuring systems, the ability to convert centimeters to inches and meters to feet has become increasingly necessary in U.S. culture.
Happily, a formula exists for converting square meters, or metres as it's spelled overseas, to square feet. One square foot equals 0.0929 of a square meter. To convert 10 square meters to square feet, for example, divide 10 by 0.0929. The answer is 107.62462648009. This means that 10 square meters equals just over 107 square feet. To convert 10 square feet to square meters, multiply 10 by 0.0929.
While it's likely the United States will one day officially adopt the metric system, chances are the customary units of inch, foot and yard will remain in the U.S. lexicon. Originally, the term "inch" represented the width of a male thumb; in many languages, the words "inch" and "thumb" are the same. Likewise, the term "foot" came from the standard length of a male foot. As accurate as the metric system may be, it's unlikely the meaningful words of customary units will disappear from the American language or culture anytime soon.