Understanding Township and Range
By Joe Doman
Coos County Search and Rescue Training Officer

*You may download this entire lesson in printable MSWord at the bottom of this page.

    The Township and Range System is also referred to as the Legal System.  And for good reason.  All land surveys in the West (Oregon in particular) are based on this system.  If you own a piece of real estate, your deed will reflect the Township & Range & Section your property is in.  Many maps use this system. When Sheriff's Deputies make out a search report, they are required to identify the Township & Range that the search took place in. Bear in mind that a Deputy Sheriff may well ask your help in establishing the Township & Range you operated in. Be ready!

In Oregon, all Townships & Ranges begin here.

WILLAMETTE STONE STATE HERITAGE SITE

Every bit of Oregon -- and much of the Western states -- is divided into a grid. At several places across the nation, the government established a land survey starting point (called a meridian) and drew the grid lines from there. What is the Willamette Stone? It's the starting point for all the land surveying west of the Cascade Mountains in both Oregon and Washington. It's the "zero point" for the Willamette Meridian.

A Little bit of history

The federal government land office survey system was established in 1812 to facilitate the surveying and selling of land in the newly acquired lands west of Ohio.  It is a system unique to the mid-western and western portions of the United States.  As the area became consolidated into territories and eventually into states, the land there was divided into 6 mile square units of land.  Each 6 square mile unit was numbered corresponding to its position relative to a parallel of latitude that served as the base line of the survey, as well as a selected meridian of longitude called a principal meridian (not to be confused with the Prime Meridian.)  Thus each 6 mile square piece of land was designated as either north or south and east or west.  The north or south designation is referred to as township and the east or west designation is referred to as range.  The entire 6 mile square piece of land however, was referred to as a township.  Each 6 mile square piece of land was further subdivided into 36 1-mile by 1-mile units called sections.  Each of the 36 sections are designated numerically beginning in the northeast corner of the township.  Each section can be subdivided still further into halves and quarters.

(Starting Point)

                                              UMT    520088.931E,
                                                        5040719.764N

                                                                                                 -----------------------------------------------------------

The Willamette Stone is at the intersection of the Meridian Line & the Base Line.

You will notice that each square above is labeled with a Township number & a Range number.
To confuse matters, the squares are called Townships.  Hey, it was a government job!
A township is six  miles on a side or 36 square miles
In the first horizontal row above (North) the base line are the T1N townships.
In the first horizontal row below (South) the base line are the T1S townships  

In the first vertical row to the right (East) of  the Meridian line are the R1E Ranges.
In the first vertical row to the left (West) of  the Meridian line are the R1W Ranges.

For the student
After printing this page:
Highlight or underline all the T1N names.
Highlight or underline all the R2E names.  

Can you see the pattern?

You have probably noticed that as you go North, the rows are numbered T1N, T2N, and of course will continue T3N, T4N, T5N, etc

The same pattern applies when you go South: T1S, T2S, T3S, T4S, etc.

And going East, the columns are numbered R1E, R2E, R3E, R4E, etc.

And going West, the columns are numbered R1W, R2W, R3W, R4W, etc.


  There is a Unit 04 for further student testing on Starting Point included in the
  download package available at the end of this lesson

Scroll down to find and download.

                                    Sections of a Township
You learned in previous exercise about townships and their locations.
Now we are going to break the townships into sections.
The yellow portion below shows one township.
Within each township are 36 sections, each one mile square. Each section contains 640 acres. The sections are numbered from 1 to 36 in the following order.  

  
Please note that the sections read right to left in the first row but left to right in the second row, reverting to left to right in the third row and so forth.

Now we are going to break a section down.
Within each section, the land is referred to as half and quarter sections. A one-sixteenth division is called a quarter of a quarter, as in the NW1/4 of the NW1/4. The descriptions are read from the smallest division to the largest.

Ready to read a map?
This is a typical map as used by SAR.  It is provided by the Coos Forest Protective Association