Reading Land Surveys
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Standard Plats
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Land surveys were once conducted using a wide variety of methods and measurements. It was only with the development of the Public Land Survey System in 1785 that a regular method of reading land survey charts, or "plats," was instituted for all land surveys in the United States. This emphasizes the most valuable and important lesson of plats: there are universal standards that can be brought to bear on any plat. Plats always include several pieces of information that allow the user to precisely measure the boundaries of a property.
Orienting a Plat
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The first indicator is directional orientation, typically indicated by a compass rose or an arrow pointing North. All it takes to orient oneself to a property plat is a compass. Place the compass on top of the plat, then rotate the plat until the N arrow on the map aligns with the needle of the compass.
Bearings and Landmarks
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Bearings indicate the direction and distance to another of the property's boundaries. Plats are remarkably comprehensive in providing additional detail, allowing several methods of learning the boundaries of a space. Other indicators include the names of adjacent property owners, named landmarks (such as rivers and hills) and unnamed landmark (such as a large tree or rock).
In Context
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What is remarkable about land survey plats is their interconnectedness to nearly every other property plat in the country. Rather than allow surveying to develop organically, all property is surveyed in relation to the plats laid down decades ago. From an initial point (initial points serve broad swathes of land, such as a single initial point for all of Washington and Oregon) land is surveyed on a X and Y axis grid. The X axis, moving East to West from the initial point, is called the Base Line, with the Y axis is the Prime Meridian. Thus, reading land surveys is often a matter of understanding the property around and the units of measurement that have been used in the past, such as the township.
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