Consider a square mile (a section of land) as a checker board. Each of the 64 squares is 1 furlong on a side. If a square is subdivided into 10 strips, each 1 chain wide, each strip will be 1 acre in area. A Canadian Football League field is exactly half a furlong in length, from goal line to goal line.
Using the same checker board, a square kilometre would occupy 5 squares by 5 squares. Each square would be 200 metres on a side. If a square is subdivided into 4 smaller squares, each 100 metres on a side, each smaller square will be 1 hectare in area.
If you can visualize this board, you'll easily be able to remember how to convert between units. Metric/Imperial conversions done this way are accurate to about 99.4%.
There are 10 chains in a furlong. There are 10 acres in a square furlong, and 64 square furlongs (8 × 8 squares) in the section, so there are 640 acres in a square mile.
A kilometre is 1000 metres long, or 5 × 200 metres. So a kilometre is 5 furlongs long, or 5/8 of a mile. Similarly a mile is 8/5 of a kilometre, or 1.6 km.
Each square contains 4 hectares or 10 acres. So 1 hectare is 2.5 acres, and 1 acre is 0.4 hectares.
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If you find Metric confusing, that's only because you (like most Americans, Canadians, and British) don't even really understand the old Imperial system. Or did you already know that there are 4 rods in a chain? Or that a rod is 16 ½ feet or 5 ½ yards long? And how many barley-corns are there in an inch?