A more common legal description is metes and bounds. This is a public surveying system that is centuries old. Using this method, townships and ranges are divided into sections, each totaling 640 acres. The legal description pinpoints the location of a given property within its particular township, range, and section.

Which system of legal descriptions uses townships?

A more common legal description is metes and bounds. This is a public surveying system that is centuries old. Using this method, townships and ranges are divided into sections, each totaling 640 acres. The legal description pinpoints the location of a given property within its particular township, range, and section.

What reference is used to describe a township?

Survey townships are generally referred to by a number based on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). A reference to the township will look something like “T2N R3E,” and the use is fully explained in the PLSS article. Townships are marked on the U.S. Geological Survey maps of the United States of America.

How do you label a township and range?

The descriptions are generally read from front to back. For example, the description above would be read “The north 1/2 of the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 24, township 32 north, range 18 east.” However, the easiest way to interpret descriptions is from back to front (or, right to left).

What are the 3 most widely recognized types of legal descriptions?

There are three common methods used to describe real estate: metes and bounds, government survey, and lot and block.

What forms the boundaries of a township?

What forms the boundaries of a township? The boundaries of townships are township lines, which run parallel to baselines meridian, and range lines, which run parallel to principal meridians. An easement dictates that property owner A gives the right to property owner B to use a portion of the property.

What are the dimensions of a township?

Each square, six miles by six miles is called a township. Townships are subdivided into SECTIONS. Since each township is six miles by six miles, township contains 36 square miles, each one forming a section. These are identified with a number based on their position.

How do you write a township range section?

The complete legal land description for a 160 acre parcel in eastern Oregon would read: the SE1/4 of Section 14 in Township 14 South, Range 34 East, Willamette Meridian. When you write a legal description, you can start with the Township and Range or you can start with the section description.

How do you write township and range coordinates?

Using the township and range coordinates system, the points on the grid are located as follows:

1. Point A is located at “SW 1/4 of NE 1/4 of Section 1, T20S, R7E”
2. Point B is located at “NW 1/4 of SW 1/4 of Section 21, T20S, R7E”
3. Point C is located at “SW 1/4 of SE 1/4 of Section 34, T20S, R7E”

Are townships rural or urban?

In South Africa, the terms township and location usually refer to the often underdeveloped racially segregated urban areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-whites, namely Indians, Africans and Coloureds.

How are sections laid out in a township?

A township is divided into 36 sections, each a square mile (640 acres). Sections are numbered by row, beginning in the upper right corner. The numbers reverse direction with each row. A section, in turn, is divided into 160-acre quarters, identified by quadrant (NW, NE, SW, SE).

What forms boundaries of a township?

What divided land into townships?

the Land Ordinance of 1785
Congress provided for surveying and selling public lands in the Land Ordinance of 1785. This law established the rectangular system of survey, which divided land into townships six miles square, with sections a mile square containing 640 acres, and quarter sections of 160 acres.

How do you read township coordinates?

Sections are numbered beginning with the northeast-most section (#1), proceeding west to 6, then south along the west edge of the township and to the east (#36 is in the SE corner). Range Lines: The north to south lines which mark township boundaries.

What is smaller than a township?

The size definition for what constitutes a “town” varies considerably in different parts of the world. – A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, with a population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand.

What is the main purpose of a township?

Township functions vary widely, but the major services most commonly performed are maintenance of local roads and administration of public assistance. Property assessment is a township function in some instances, and in a few states the township serves as an area for school administration.

How small is a township?

The Census defines small towns as incorporated areas with 5,000 residents or fewer, and big cities as having populations of 50,000 or more. Midsize cities, which the Census defines as between 5,000-10,000 people, also grew from 2010-2019 in every region except the Northeast.