Rectangular Survey System 101

Now that you have the legal description of your ancestors Land Application, you will want to know where it was located.  To begin with, you should understand that just because you found a application for a parcel of land, this dose not mean that the complete process of recording was completed.  You should check with the local records to verify that the parcel was recorded and ownership was bestowed.

The rectangular survey system consist of Township, Range, Section Number and Aliquot Parts.  In addition, Township, Range, Section Number and Aliquot Part is based upon a principal meridian. For Charlotte Co, Fl. this principal meridian is Tallahassee, Fl,

Township / Range

    The Township identifies a major subdivision of the public lands.  A Township measure approximately 6 miles on each side and contain approximately 23,000 acres.  A Township will also be referred to as North or South, this is the direction from the principal meridian.

    The Range identifies just like the Township but is referred too as East or West of the principal meridian.  You use Township and Range together to narrow down the location to a 6 mile square area.

Section Number

    The section number refers to a part of the Township/Range.  The size of a section is 1 mile square and contains approximately 640 acres.  We know that a Township is 6 miles square, so 6 miles times 6 miles  equals 36 square miles.  Therefore a Township/Range consist of 36 sections, each section is one mile by one mile,

Here is a basic example:

This tells us that the property lays 11 townships south of Tallahassee, and 15 ranges east of Tallahassee.  With a map you can get a good ideal where the property is located by  measuring 66 miles south (11 "townships"  x  6 "miles") and 90 miles east  (15 "ranges"  x  6 "miles" ) of Tallahassee.

Once we have the Township and Range narrowed down we can identify the section number within the Township, for our example this is 26.

Once you have identified the section you are within one mile of the property, since each section is one mile square.  To further narrow down the location of the property we use the Aliquot Parts.

Aliquot Parts is the subdividing of the section into halves and quarters, repeatedly, until the parcel of land is accurately described.

    Halves of sections (or subdivision thereof) are referred to as N, S, E, W (representing the North half (N), South half (S), East half (E) or West half (W) of a section).  Quarters of sections (or subdivision thereof) are referred to as NW, SW, NE, SE (representing the Northwest quarter (NW), Southwest quarter (SW), Northeast quarter (NE) or Southeast quarter (SE).

You need to pay close attention to this description as you can misread and end up on the wrong side of the section.  For our example from above, the Aliquot Parts reads "SWSW",  This is refering to the Southwest quarter, and again the Southwest quarter.

Section 26 was cut into halves, then the South half was cut in half again to create the quarter (or we could just have said, Section 26 was cut into quarters), So the first "SW" of our example referred to the Southwest quarter of Section 26, the second "SW" of our example refers to the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 26, this second "SW" cut the first "SW" quarter into quarters and made reference to the Southwest.  This way of description can go on and on until the property is clearly described.

 As a general rule the above should present you with a good ideal of the parcel location, though you should note, there is one big flaw with this way of describing property, it is based on a flat surface, well as most of us today believe the earth is somewhat round in shape, and if you have ever tried to gift wrap a round object with a  flat wrapping, you get the ideal of the problems.  You will find maps of  Townships/Range with corrections to the basic rectangular survey system.