The Mylars do not currently give display any Township-Range-Section information (not sure why, but whatever) however I have tons of data being provided by our local Tax Assessor/Land Records offices. One of the pieces of data I have is the Township Range and Section for my city and surrounding cities. How do I find the Town, Range and Section? There are directions for using the PR Finder to obtain the town, range and section in the CPS Applicant Guide. See Enter Site Info in Chapter 2 of the CPS Permit Applicant Guide which can be found on the Construction Permits website.
A township in the United States is a small geographic area.[1]
The term is used in three ways.
Survey townships[edit]![]()
Diagram of survey township
Hierarchy of systemic numbering in the PLSS
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 'Township 2 North Range 3 East', or 'T2N,R3E' and such a notation is used in property descriptions based on the PLSS. Townships were originally surveyed and platted by the United States General Land Office, using contracted private survey crews, and are marked on the United States Geological Survey maps of the United States.
Townships are normally a square approximately six miles (9.7 km) on a side with cardinal boundaries conforming to meridians and parallels, containing 36 sections of one square mile (2.6 km2) each. The northern and westernmost tier of sections in each township are designed to take up the convergence of the east and west township boundary lines or range lines, as well as any error in the survey measurements, and therefore these sections vary slightly from being one square mile or 640 acres (260 ha). Survey townships exist in some form in most states other than the original 13 colonies, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vermont, and Maine.[dubious] Irregular or fractional townships with fewer than a full 36 sections are created where full townships cannot be laid out due to existing senior boundaries, such as Spanish/Mexican ranchos, Indian reservations, state boundary lines, etc.
This kind of township is similar to geographic townships in the province of Ontario, Canada.
In Kentucky, the Jackson Purchase (the area west of the Tennessee River) is divided into townships and ranges. In Tennessee, the entire state is surveyed into townships and ranges that make up 13 survey districts of the Tennessee State Survey. In extreme northern Maine there is an area divided into townships and ranges oriented to true north. A region in the central part of the state, made up of 17 surveys, is divided into townships, but these are not oriented to true north. The remainder of the state is on metes and bounds. Similarly, Vermont and New Hampshire are mostly metes-and-bounds states, but have areas in the north that are surveyed into townships not oriented to true north. Most of Ohio is surveyed using the Public Land Survey System, but several sizable areas are metes-and-bounds, including the Virginia Military Reserve, Donation Tract, French Grant and the three Moravian grants (Gnadenhutten, Schoenbrunn and Salem). A 150,000-acre (61,000 ha) area in southern Indiana (Clark's Grant) is not surveyed into townships, but is still a gridded survey. Portions of the Texas State Survey use square townships. Sizeable portions of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona are unsurveyed. Substantial swampy areas in Florida and Louisiana are also unsurveyed.
Both New York and Pennsylvania have metes-and-bounds surveys, but in the western parts of these states, the metes-and-bounds form square townships many of which are also civil townships. Besides these, nearly every state has areas of metes-and-bounds that were never included in the grids (like along major rivers) or were removed from the grid, usually due to surveying mistakes.
Civil townships[edit]
The township government is a unit of local government, often rural. Townships are geographic and political subdivisions of a county. The township is identified by a name, such as Raritan Township, New Jersey. The responsibilities and the form of the township government is specified by the state legislature.
The most common form of township government has an elected board of trustees or supervisors. Some additional offices, such as clerk or constable, may also be elected. The most common governmental responsibilities of townships include oversight of such things as road maintenance, land-use planning, and trash collection. Many townships in Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania provide police and fire protection, similar to what an incorporated city would provide.
In most midwestern states, a civil township often corresponds to a single survey township, although in less populated areas, the civil township may be made up of all or portions of several survey townships. In areas where there are natural features such as a lake or river, the civil township boundaries may follow the geographic features rather than the survey township boundaries. Municipalities such as cities may incorporate or annex land in a township, which is then generally removed from township government. Only one state, Indiana, has township governments covering all its area and population.[2] In other states, some types of municipalities, like villages, remain a part of the township while cities are not. As urban areas expand, a civil township may entirely disappear—see, for example, Mill Creek Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. In other expanding urban areas, the township may incorporate itself into a city; this can be seen in the numerous square cities of Hennepin, Anoka, and Washington counties in Minnesota. The Montgomery County, Ohio, cities of Trotwood (1996, formerly Madison Township), Huber Heights (1980, Wayne Township), and Kettering (1955, Van Buren Township) are further examples of townships incorporating into cities.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey have civil townships that are not based on the PLSS survey system, but on the older metes and bounds survey system. A New Jersey township differs only in name from other municipalities: its boundaries are fixed, it is an incorporated body, and it is free to adopt another form of government. The federal government has frequently failed to allow for federal funding unless they went under a different name;[citation needed] some New Jersey municipalities, such as the Township of the Borough of Verona or Township of South Orange Village, changed their names to qualify for additional federal aid.
Utah and Nevada have areas called townships, but they are not the same as civil townships. These areas are not separate governments, but have been granted some degree of self-rule by a county.[citation needed]
Charter townships[edit]
Michigan has created charter townships as a separate type of government to allow greater flexibility for township governments to serve urbanized populations. In Michigan, as in other states with like systems (though sometimes different names), a township is an administrative division of a county, which is an administrative division of the state. Counties and townships are local organs through which state law and public policy are administered, adapted to local need to the extent the law allows. A charter township is a township that has been granted a charter, which allows it certain rights and responsibilities of home rule that are generally intermediary in scope between those of a city (a semi-autonomous jurisdiction in Michigan) and a village, which (unless it is a home-rule village) is subject to the authority of the township(s) in which it is located.
Charter townships may also reorganize themselves into municipalities, as can be seen in Wayne County, Michigan, and elsewhere in the Detroit metropolitan area.
Census statistics[edit]
Towns and townships are sometimes considered minor civil divisions of counties by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes.[3] According to the Census Bureau, in 2002, town or township government applied to 16,504 organized governments in the following 20 states:
This categorization includes governmental units officially designated as 'towns' in the New England states, New York, and Wisconsin, some plantations in Maine and locations in New Hampshire. In Minnesota, the terms town and township are used interchangeably with regard to township governments. Although towns in the six New England states and New York, and townships in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, are legally termed municipal corporations, perform municipal-type functions, and frequently serve densely populated urban areas, they have no necessary relation to concentration of population, and are thus counted for census purposes as town or township governments. Even in states beyond New England, townships often serve urbanized areas and provide municipal services typically provided by incorporated municipalities.
The count of 16,504 organized township governments does not include unorganized township areas (where the township may exist in name only, but has no organized government) or where the townships are coextensive with cities and the cities have absorbed the township functions. It also does not include the townships in Iowa (see Iowa townships), which are not separate governments, but are classified as subordinate agencies of county governments.
Of the 16,504 town or township governments, only 1,179 (7.1 percent) had as many as 10,000 inhabitants in the 2000 census and 52.4 percent of all towns or townships had fewer than 1000 inhabitants. There was a decline in the number of town or township governments from 16,629 in 1997 to 16,504 in 2002. Nearly all of the decline involved townships in the Midwest.
Usage by state[edit]
Because township government is defined by each state, the use of this form also varies by state. States using a township form include the following:
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Township_(United_States)&oldid=901444858'
Database Search Help
Note: Most users will find searching by township, range, and section is the best option.
Available search options include:
A user search can also be further qualified by selecting
Users who download data will receive two files (wells.txt and litho.txt) that are compressed for data transfer. Both files are tab-delimited format capable of being imported to a variety of programs. Click below for information about importing tab-delimited well data to Microsoft Excel and Access.
* Township, range, and section can be determined from a variety of sources. Three excellent sources are property tax statements, property deeds, and county plat books. Other sources include USGS topograpic maps, county courthouses, local libraries, and university libraries.
Definitions for Database Search Help
Water Wells:
There are two types of water well data that are posted on this viewer: data for water wells having locations that are known and those with locations that are estimated. Water wells with known locations have been 'field verified' and assigned UTM coordinates by Division of Water personnel. The verified wells are represented as either a red dot or a blue dot which identifies the type aquifer system in which the well was completed. A red dot indicates a bedrock well and blue indicates an unconsolidated (sand and/or gravel) well.
Wells having an estimated location are shown with a green dot. The location is estimated and UTM coordinates are assigned based on information provided by drillers and are not 'field verified'. The UTM coordinates are assigned based on the accuracy of quarter sections that Division of Water personnel are able to define. Wells having the most reliable location are assigned a coordinate based on the center of a third quarter section. Wells with the least reliable location are assigned a quarter section assigned based on the center of a section (see description of Township/Range/Section).
Well Reference Number
The well reference number is a unique identification number assigned to each well record in the database. No two well records will have the same number. If you have a specific well reference number you can very quickly access the well record.
Township/Range/Section (Twp/Rng/Sec)
Sections of land in Indiana are referenced according to the Township, Range, and Section System (otherwise known as the Congressional Land Survey System). Township, range, and section numbers are assigned to each well record received. The original paper records are then filed according to this system.
Each Congressional township is divided into 36 sections of land with each section approximately one square mile (see map 1). Each township is described as a number of rows or tiers north or south of a baseline (see map 2). A range is referenced according to a number east or west of a principal meridian (see map 2). In Indiana there are 38 townships north and 9 townships south of the defined baseline and 15 ranges east and 15 ranges west of the second principal meridian.
There are some areas, however, where the Congressional Land Survey System was not used (see map 2). Two examples are areas in Knox (see map 3) and Clark counties. In such areas township and range lines have been projected and the special grant, donation, or reserve number was recorded as if it were a section number.
Topographic Quadrangle (Topo Map)
Topographic Quadrangles are maps produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that represent a plan view of the earth's surface at a scale of 1:24,000 (1 inch = 2000 feet). Features like surface topography, streams, lakes, roads and buildings are shown on these maps. There are approximately 710 topographic quadrangle maps (each about 7 miles by 9 miles) that cover Indiana. All water well records in the Division of Water database are assigned a topographic quadrangle map for locating purposes.
County
There are 92 counties located in Indiana. Each water well record in the database is assigned the county it was drilled in.
UTM Coordinates and UTM ONLY
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) is a grid system originally developed for military use by the Defense Mapping Agency. The earth's surface is divided into 60 north-south zones each covering a strip 6 degrees wide in longitude. The northing (utm-y) coordinates are measured in meters north of the Equator and the easting (utm-x) coordinates are measured relative to a central meridian within the zone. Indiana is within Zone 16, which falls within longitude 84 degrees west and longitude 90 degrees west. The Water Rights and Use Section assigns UTM coordinates (NAD 27) to every well record that is located. For more information on the UTM Grid System go to
USGS.
UTM coordinates can be used for search purposes in two ways. One way involves defining a boxed area through UTM maximum and minimum northing and easting values. The resulting data that will be returned will only include those records with UTM values assigned that fall within the defined area.
The second way involves qualifying a search (in conjunction with other search parameters) by UTM ONLY. Records returned will include only those with UTM coordinates assigned. For example, a township, range, and section search, qualified by UTM ONLY, will return only records with UTM coordinates assigned that fall within the previously defined township, range, and section(s).
Test Rate
Indiana Code 14-25-7-15 defines a 'significant water withdrawal facility' as a facility having a combined capacity of withdrawing 100,000 gallons per day (about 70 gallons per minute (GPM)) or greater. Some database users find it helpful to search for high capacity wells based on the reported well test rate. Selecting this feature will only return records showing test rates of 70 GPM or greater as reported by the well driller. The actual capacity of the installed pump may be greater or less than the reported test rate.
Date Completed
One of the data fields available on water well records is well completion date. This information is provided by the driller. The Date Completed search option can allow a user to narrow search parameters to within a specified date range. The user should recognize that a search qualified by a date range will only return records that have data in this field
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