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Surveying Units and Terms

3 Sep 2001

If you don't see your favorite obscure units or terms, please let us know. We're happy to add to our list.

Units of Measure

• Acre - The (English) acre is a unit of area equal to 43,560 square feet, or 10 square chains, or 160 square poles. It derives from a plowing area that is 4 poles wide and a furlong (40 poles) long. A square mile is 640 acres. The Scottish acre is 1.27 English acres. The Irish acre is 1.6 English acres.
• Arpent - Unit of length and area used in France, Louisiana, and Canada. As a unit of length, approximately 191.8 feet (180 old French 'pied', or foot). The (square) arpent is a unit of area, approximately .845 acres, or 36,802 square feet.
• Chain - Unit of length usually understood to be Gunter's chain, but possibly variant by locale. Chains equal to 2 poles (one half the standard length) are found in Virginia. The name comes from the heavy metal chain of 100 links that was used by surveyors to measure property bounds.
• Colpa - Old Irish measure of land equal to that which can support a horse or cow for a year. Approximately an Irish acre of good land.
• Engineer's Chain - A 100 foot chain containing 100 links of one foot apiece.
• Furlong - Unit of length equal to 40 poles (220 yards). Its name derives from "furrow long", the length of a furrow. See Gunter's chain.
• Gunter's Chain - Unit of length equal to 66 feet, or 4 poles. This unit was apparently defined as one tenth of a furlong, a common unit of length in the old days. The mile was redefined from the old Roman value of 5000 feet to 5280 feet in order to be an even multiple of furlongs. A mile is 80 chains.
• Hectare - Metric unit of area equal to 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres, or 107,639 square feet.
• Hide - Old English unit of area usually equal to 120 acres.
• Labor - The labor is a unit of area used in Mexico and Texas. In Texas it equals 177.14 acres (or 1 million square varas).
• League (legua) - Unit of area used in the southwest U.S., equal to 25 labors, or 4428 acres (Texas), or 4439 acres (California). Also, a unit of length-- approximately three miles.
• Link - Unit of length equal to 1/100 chain (7.92 inches).
• Morgen - Unit of area equal to about .6309 acres. It was used in Germany, Holland and South Africa, and was derived from the German word Morgen ("morning"). It represented the amount of land that could be plowed in a morning.
• Perch - See pole .
• Point - A point of the compass. There are four cardinal points (North, South, East, West), and 28 others yielding 32 points of 11.25 degrees each. A survey line's direction could be described as a compass point, as in "NNE" (north northeast). To improve precision, the points would be further subdivided into halves or quarters as necessary, for example, "NE by North, one quarter point North". In some areas, "and by" meant one half point, as in "NE and by North".
• Pole - Unit of length and area. Also known as a perch or rod. As a unit of length, equal to 16.5 feet. A mile is 320 poles. As a unit of area, equal to a square with sides one pole long. An acre is 160 square poles. It was common to see an area referred to as "87 acres, 112 poles", meaning 87 and 112/160 acres.
• Pueblo - A Spanish grant of less than 1000 acres.
• Rancho - A Spanish grant of more than 1000 acres.
• Rod - See pole
• Rood - Unit of area usually equal to 1/4 acre.
• Vara - Unit of length (the "Spanish yard") used in the U.S. southwest. The vara is used throughout the Spanish speaking world and has values around 33 inches, depending on locale. The legal value in Texas was set to 33 1/3 inches early in the 1900's.

Standard Surveying Terms

• Aliquot - The description of fractional section ownership used in the U.S. public land states. A parcel is generally identified by its section, township, and range. The aliquot specifies its precise location within the section, for example, the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter.
• Benchmark - A survey mark made on a monument having a known location and elevation, serving as a reference point for surveying.
• Call - Any feature, landmark, or measurement called out in a survey. For example, "two white oaks next to the creek" is a call.
• Chain carrier - An assistant to the surveyor, the chain carriers moved the surveying chain from one location to another under the direction of the surveyor. This was a position of some responsibility, and the chain carriers took an oath as "sworn chain carriers" that they would do their job properly.
• Condition - See Conditional line.
• Conditional line - An agreed line between neighbors that has not been surveyed, or which has been surveyed but not granted.
• Corner - The beginning or end point of any survey line. The term corner does not imply the property was in any way square.
• Declination - The difference between magnetic north and geographic (true) north. Surveyors used a compass to determine the direction of survey lines. Compasses point to magnetic north, rather than true north. This declination error is measured in degrees, and can range from a few degrees to ten degrees or more. Surveyors may have been instructed to correct their surveys by a particular declination value. The value of declination at any point on the earth is constantly changing because the location of magnetic north is drifting. More information about historical values of declination is available.
• First station - See Point of Beginning
• Gore - A thin triangular piece of land, the boundaries of which are defined by surveys of adjacent properties. Loosely, an overlap or gap between properties. See also strip.
• Landmark - A survey mark made on a 'permanent' feature of the land such as a tree, pile of stones, etc.
• Line Tree - Any tree that is on a property line, specifically one that is also a corner to another property.
• Merestone - A stone that marks a boundary. See monument.
• Monument - A permanently placed survey marker such as a stone shaft sunk into the ground.
• Out - An 'out' was ten chains. When counting out long lines, the chain carriers would put a stake at the end of a chain, move the chain and put a stake at the end, and so on until they ran "out" of ten stakes.
• Point of Beginning - The starting point of the survey
• Plat - A drawing of a parcel of land.
• Range - In the U.S. public land surveying system, a north-south column of townships, identified as being east or west of a reference longitudinal meridian, for example, Range 3 West. See township.
• Searles Spiral - A surveying technique used by railroad surveyors in the the late 1800s and early 1900s whereby they approximate a spiral by use of multiple curved segments.
• Section - In the U.S. public land surveying system, an area one mile square. See aliquot.
• Strip - A rectangular piece of land adjoining a parcel, created when a resurvey turns up a tiny bit larger than the original survey. The difference is accounted for by temperature or other effects on measuring chains. See also gore.
• Township - In the U.S. public land surveying system, an area six miles square, containing 36 sections. The townships are organized in rows and are identified with respect to a reference latitudinal baseline, for example, Township 13 North. See range.
• Witness Tree - Generally used in the U.S. public land states, this refers to the trees close to a section corner. The surveyor blazed them and noted their position relative to the corner in his notebook. Witness trees are used as evidence for the corner location.

Surveyors' Slang

• Balls - Slang for numeric .00, as in 4-balls (4.00)
• Beep - Verb. To use a magnetic detector to look for iron pipe, etc.
• Burn - See shoot
• Double nickel - Slang for .55, as in 6-double nickel (6.55)
• EDM - Electronic Distance Measurement device, the instrument used by modern surveyors that replaces the use of measurement chains. It determines distance by measuring the time it takes for light to reflect off a prism on top of a rod.
• Ginney - A wooden dowel 6-9 inches in length with a sharpened end. Set in the ground to mark survey points.
• Glass - The EDM prism.
• Gun - See EDM
• Hours - Degrees
• Hub and Tack - A 2" by 2" stake that is set in the ground and that contains a nail ("tack") that precisely marks the point being set.
• Legs - Tripod
• Pogo - Prism pole
• Punk - See railroad.
• Railroad - Slang for eleven, as in 42-railroad (42.11)
• Rodman - The person holding the rod with the EDM prism. This person is the modern version of a chain carrier or chain man.
• Shoot - Measure distance with an EDM
• Spike - Usually a 60 penny nail used to mark survey points in hard ground.
• Top - Slang for eleven. See railroad.
• Zero - Zero degrees, minutes, and seconds. A perfect zero.

Water Terms

• Bank - Edge of a stream.
• Bottom - Land along a river.
• Branch - Small stream.
• Brook - Small stream.
• Creek - Small stream.
• Drain - Small dry stream or gully.
• Drean - See drain.
• Ford - Shallow part of a stream or river where one could cross.
• Fork - Meeting point of two streams. "In the fork of" means between two branches.
• Gut - A narrow passage between hills. A stream in such a passage. A drain.
• Head - The source of a stream.
• Headwaters - The smallest streams that combine to small a larger stream.
• Lower - Toward the mouth of a stream. Further down along its course. Opposite of upper.
• Meander - "with the meanders of the stream" means the survey line follows the twists and turns of the stream.
• Mouth - The place where a stream enters another, larger stream.
• Narrows - Narrow part of a stream.
• River - Large stream.
• Run - Small stream.
• Shoal - Shallows.
• Spring - A pool or other source of water that feeds a stream.
• Swamp - In the southeast, a stream, particularly one that has has swampy parts. A marsh.
• Upper - Toward the head of a stream. Further up along its course. Opposite of lower.
• Waters ("watters") of - In the drainage of.

Trees

• Ash - has tough, straight-grained wood
• Aspen - a type of poplar
• Basswood - see linden
• Beech - smooth gray bark and small edible nuts
• Birch, (burch) -
• Black gum - see tupelo
• Blackjack - a type of small oak
• Black oak -
• Black walnut -
• Box oak -
• Buckeye -
• Cedar -
• Cherry -
• Chestnut - American chestnut has been virtually destroyed by blight.
• Chestnut oak - has leaves resembling a chestnut
• Cottonwood -
• Dogwood -
• Elm -
• Gum - subtypes: black, sweet
• Hackberry - has cherry-like fruit
• Hickory, hiccory, hickry - has edible nuts and hard wood
• Hornbeam - has hard, heavy wood
• Ironwood - see hornbeam
• Laurel -
• Live oak -
• Lowerwood - transcription error for sourwood
• Maple, (maypole)
• Mountain birch -
• Oak, (oake) - subtypes: black, box, chestnut, live, pin, post, red, scrub, Spanish, swamp white, white
• Pawpaw -
• Persimmon - has plum-like fruit
• Pine -
• Pin oak -
• Pohiccory - see hickory
• Poplar, popular -
• Post oak - wood used for posts
• Red oak -
• Sapling, (saplin) - young tree
• Sassafras - bark used in medicines and beverages
• Scrub oak - usually found in dry, rocky soil
• Sour gum - see tupelo
• Sourwood - sorrel tree
• Spanish oak -
• Spruce -
• Sugar tree - sugar maple
• Swamp white oak - heavy, hard wood used in shipbuilding, furniture, etc.
• Sweet gum - hard reddish brown wood used for furniture
• Sycamore -
• Tupelo -
• Walnut - black
• White oak -

Sources

• Wm. Johnston, "For Good Measure".
• Untitled. Book listing State and Federal Laws relating to measures.
• Funk & Wagnall's Unabridged Dictionary, 1963
• Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1959
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Robert's Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise, 1979
• Discussions with Mr. Galtjo Geertsema, Land Surveyor; Ms. Patricia Law Hatcher, lecturer on land records.
• "Land and Property Research in the U.S", Wade Hone, 1997
• Contributions from surveyors.