Talk:Section (United States land surveying)

Overzealous with the U.S. bit
Somebody got carried away in merging the old "Section (land)" into this "Section (U.S. land surveying)". Even if at the time the articles were a lot of duplication, the use of "section" with this meaning is not limited to the United States. For example, go look at Dominion Land Survey dealing with the Canadian land surveys, and count up the number of times the term "section" is used. That is indeed normal Canadian usage, at least in the Prairie Provinces, as I know from my own experiences.

Note that the Canadian "sections" which are numbered differently within a township than they are in the U.S. (each row is the same, but the rows are inverted with section 1 in the southeast corner rather than the northeast corner).

So what should we do about it? I think this should be renamed "Section (land)" with the current title redirected to that. That would be much better than separate articles for what is essentially the same usage. Gene Nygaard 22:46, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * That was me who merged the two (after a merge notice had been added to both pages by someone else). At the time, there was not any mention at all of the Canadian usage in the old Section (land) article. The only mention was a cross-reference on this page. The content of the old article was entirely U.S.-oriented, so I didn't see any problem with merging the content. But I've no problem if you want to move this back to Section (land) and expand the information on Canada. older &ne; wiser 23:06, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I expected that was probably the case, and it was the reasonable thing to do at the time to get it into one article.  I'll probably move it eventually, after leaving this here for a while to see if anyone else wants to add to the discussion.   Gene Nygaard 23:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Any preferences for inclusive name?
I think "section (land)" would be best, "section (survey)" or "section (land surveying)" gives more of an impression that this is only used in reference to the surveying and not in our everyday lives. Any other ideas would be appreciated. Gene Nygaard 14:51, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I could go for "section (land)". Kbh3rd 14:59, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * My vote is for "section (land)." jengod 21:31, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Conversion to other measurements
I think it would be nice to have a section which would provide links for conversion to other ways of measurement. Such as UTM, Lat/Long (degrees, mintues, seconds) ... etc.

Also, what about a consideration of a Quadrangle? What it is and how it is accounted for... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.238.148.194 (talk) 17:02, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Exceptions
The An exception section contains a sentence or two about Cherokee County, Georgia not being part of the PLSS and containing irregular sections. That is hardly unique. There are lots of places that were not part of the PLSS and contain irregular sections. There are places that are not part of PLSS that contain no sections, at least not on the topo maps that I've seen. There are other places that are part of the PLSS but which contain oddball sections where old French or Spanish land grands, e.g., predate the establishment of the US PLSS; Missouri is generally platted to the PLSS, but in the middle of a regular township grid you'll see the occasional diamond section or other oddity, such as this. I doubt Missouri is unique in this regard, though I don't know.

In my opinion this section of the article (pun unavoidable) should be rewritten to that general topic and not be just about one county in Georgia. In my further opnion, the details of the what and why of departures from the norm belong in the PLSS article, and all this article needs is the fact that because of certain historical reasons, not all sections in all areas adhere to the 36 square sections per square township standard. Unfortunately, I do not feel qualified to make such changes because I cannot state with certainty what all such conditions might be nor their relative occurence. --Kbh3rd talk 03:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Sections
The caption was wrong. In general the survey left a right of way on the section lines not the quarter sections. By actual measurement using Google Earth, the Indiana photo shows roads on section lines. Nick Beeson (talk) 00:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Using google earth, follow South Dakota route 32 south from Lisbon, SD about 10 miles to see the correction to the section lines. Go west to SD route 1 to see it again. I have some photos from the air that are clearer. jwdooley@aol.com 72.95.59.130 (talk) 01:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC) john dooley

Section 16 land?
I do not see anything about section 16 land. Here in MS this is land owned buy school districts which can be rented and other things. It gives the schools a small steady income. So, why is this not covered? John W. Nicholson (talk) 04:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Row and column formula
Useful, perhaps: https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/470606/how-to-get-the-row-and-column-of-us-plss-sections/470607#470607. Jidanni (talk) 13:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Photo upside down!
The photo from an airplane is obviously presented upside down! Title Perfectly square 160-acre quarter sections of farmland cover Central Indiana. Who should fix that? Johnedwardmiller (talk) 23:03, 13 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Johnedwardmiller How do you figure it's upside down? It makes sense that the closer (and apparently larger) squares are at the bottom of the image. —C.Fred (talk) 23:08, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Notice that the image Flips, when you click though to the large image. The  1,600 × 1,200 pixels is upside down from all the other sizes in the File:Indy farmland.jpg page Johnedwardmiller (talk) 03:25, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Johnedwardmiller Sounds like a browser issue on your side. Clear your cache and try again. All image sizes are the same orientation from my desktop. —C.Fred (talk) 14:48, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * NOPE. Same problem on my iPad. Johnedwardmiller (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Try another browser. For me the image and click-through are all identical in Chrome / Edge / Firefox web browsers on a Windows 10 computer.  •  Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 20:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Large image displays upright using FireFox on same computer. Safari on latest MacOS and iPad OS displays it upside down. GO figure! Johnedwardmiller (talk) 19:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Johnedwardmiller There must be some metadata for image orientation that Macs don't properly parse, I guess. I've run into similar issues with images on the Mac, but more in Photos than in Safari. —C.Fred (talk) 00:29, 6 February 2024 (UTC)