Which way do townships run

Ranges run east and west. Sections represent further divisions of a township. A township can be divided into 36 sections. Each section is about 1 square mile.

Sections are numbered from the top right, or northeast section, then to the left, and down in an "S" formation. The section below is taken from T.

Any township can be found by identifying the township number, then the range number, and finally the base and meridian system. Corners describe areas within a section to provide more specific location information. Corners can be described as northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest.

There are corners within corners. For example, the figure below indicates a lightning strike at the point labeled "X" in section They are also four townships apart. The first correction line is between townships two and three; the second between townships six and seven; the third between townships ten and eleven, and so on northerly in regular order. For example, the twelfth correction line between townships forty-six and forty-seven runs through Camrose, and the twenty-third correction line between townships ninety and ninety-one runs just north of Fort MacKay.

The north boundary of Alberta is about the thirty-second correction line. The jogs along a correction line increase in length as one proceeds westerly from an Initial Meridian. For example, on the 14th correction line running through Namao north of Edmonton, the jog at the northeast comer of range ten is about On the east side of each Initial Meridian the width of the last range is narrower than a full range due to the convergence between two adjacent Initial Meridians.

These fractional ranges are less than six miles in width, the width varying with its position along the Initial Meridian, as shown in the figure above to the right. Sections in a fractional township are numbered the same as though the township was a full one. The Dominion Land Survey System therefore established a practical, accurate solution to the subdivision of vast tracts of land in Western Canada.

The framework of meridians and base lines provided the basis for township subdivision in the System. While readily understood and used by early settlers and even by people today, it was highly technical and complicated to layout while keeping errors under control.

This required skilled government surveyors DLS to accomplish. Based on lines of latitude and longitude determined by astronomic field observations it covered the largest tract of land ever surveyed in North America under a single integrated system.

Township surveys subdivided the Crown land into parcels which could be sold for settlement, development and other public purposes. The figure below shows the structure of a typical township of the Third System of Survey the First and Second Systems, which differed mainly in allotment and width of road allowances, were laid out in southern Manitoba and south-eastern Saskatchewan up to about ; after that, the remainder of the Prairie Provinces was subdivided according to the Third System of Survey.

North-south road allowances run every mile apart; east-west road allowances are spaced at two mile intervals. Each township contains three blind lines east-west section lines where no road allowance is provided - called "blind lines" because they were not measured on the earlier surveys.

Distances shown on the early township plans are in Chains, and areas are shown in acres. Each of the 36 squares are called sections that are numbered from the bottom right hand corner starting at number one and ending in the top right corner with the number thirty six.

Every section contains approximately acres of land and is about one square mile in size. A section is made up of four quarter sections. Each quarter section is approximately acres and is described by its compass direction, e.

Each quarter section can be divided into four legal subdivisions.