Surveying Glossary

One leg of the boundary — a single bearing and distance, or a single curve.

A right to use part of someone else’s land for a stated purpose.

The written text in a deed that defines exactly which piece of land is conveyed.

A boundary written as a walking route: direction and distance, corner to corner.

A physical marker on the ground that fixes a corner.

A single defined piece of land — one closed boundary.

The corner the description starts from — and must return to.

A strip of land reserved for travel or utilities, such as a road corridor.

The word that separates one call from the next: "from there, continue…".

A direction as a single angle from 0° to 360°, measured clockwise from north.

The reference north that every bearing in a description is measured from.

A direction measured from north or south, written like N 45°30′00″ E.

Angle notation: 1 degree = 60 minutes, 1 minute = 60 seconds.

The distance measured along the curve itself.

The straight line between the two ends of a curve.

Which side the curve’s center sits on — the direction it bends toward.

A boundary leg that follows a circular arc instead of a straight line.

The angle the curve sweeps at the circle’s center.

The distance from the center of the circle to the curve.

A line that touches the curve and runs in its direction of travel at that point.

Parcel area in acres; one acre is 43,560 square feet.

Whether the boundary comes back to its starting corner.

The gap between where the last call lands and the point of beginning.

Misclosure compared to perimeter, written like 1:10,000.

The chain of calls walked end-to-end to draw the boundary.

An old surveying unit: 66 feet, or 100 links.

One hundredth of a chain — 7.92 inches.

16.5 feet — a quarter of a chain. Also called a pole or perch.

A Spanish-colonial unit, about 33.33 inches in Texas.

A clean fractional division of a section, like the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4.

The recorded document that transfers land, containing its legal description.

A recorded map dividing land into numbered lots and blocks.

The township-and-range grid that covers most of the western and central U.S.

The east–west coordinate of the PLSS grid, counted from a principal meridian.

One square mile of the PLSS grid — 640 acres.

A six-by-six-mile block of PLSS sections; also the north–south grid coordinate.

A CAD drawing exchange format that opens in AutoCAD, Civil 3D, and the rest.

A geographic file format for viewing the parcel on Google Earth and mapping tools.

Turning a photo or scan of text into characters a computer can read.