Texas land survey system
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Texas, along with the original thirteen states and several others in the Southwest which were originally deeded with Spanish land grants, does not use the Public Land Survey System[1] (also known as the Section Township Range and the Jeffersonian System). Land grants from the state of Texas to railroad companies were often patented in blocks and sections, and occasionally in units of square miles, officially considered sections.
The Texas Land Survey System is often measured in Spanish Customary Units. The most important of these is the vara, which, while ambiguous in the past, was legally established to be exactly 33+1⁄3 inches (846.67 mm) long in June 1919. [2]
The subdivision levels in Texas are as follows:[3]
- State boundary
- Railroad district (12 total, county boundaries)
- County
In Texas, the highest level of land subdivision is the boundary of the state itself. Below this are the Texas railroad districts, of which there are 12. These are Spanish grants, surveyed on the "metes and bounds" system of measurement, and are of irregular shape and size.
Counties are contained within railroad districts, but township/section, block, and league/labor measurements are not required to follow county boundaries. This is because original measurement lines were drawn before county lines.
Townships and sections (South Texas)
- Township
- Section
Townships and sections, only found in southern Texas, follow the same style as the Public Land Survey System but do not include ranges. Sections are numbered between 1 and 9,999, but can include fractions (as in 65.5)