Baseline (surveying)

Last updated February 27, 2024

This BLM map depicts the principal meridians and baselines used in the survey of the United States. Meridians-baselines.png — This BLM map depicts the principal meridians and baselines used in the survey of the United States.

In surveying, a baseline is generally a line between two points on the Earth's surface and the direction and distance between them. In a triangulation network, at least one baseline between two stations needs to be measured to calculate the size of the triangles by trigonometry.

In the United States Public Land Survey System, a baseline is specifically the principal east-west line (i.e., a parallel) upon which all rectangular surveys in a defined area are based. The baseline meets its corresponding principal meridian (north-south line) at the point of origin, or initial point , for the land survey. For example, the baseline for Nebraska and Kansas is shared as the border for both states, at the 40th parallel north.

More specifically a baseline may be the line that divides a survey township between north and south.

"Baseline Road" in the United States

Many communities in the United States have roads that run along survey baselines, many of which are named to reflect that fact. Some examples:

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Baseline Road follows the baseline used by surveyors of the Louisiana Purchase.
In Colorado, Baseline Road in Boulder marks the 40th parallel, or the western extension of the Kansas-Nebraska boundary, which is also the boundary between Adams and Weld counties.
In Arizona, the baseline near the Phoenix metro area is marked by Baseline Road.
In Southern California, from Highland to San Dimas, the baseline is marked by Baseline Road.
In Michigan, the baseline for the Michigan Survey forms the boundary between the second and third tiers of counties and in many portions, discontinuous segments of road along the baseline are known as "Baseline Road." 8 Mile Road in the Detroit area runs along the Michigan Baseline and was formerly known as "Baseline Road."
Baseline Road in Hillsboro, Oregon, generally follows the Willamette Baseline which intersects the Willamette Meridian at the Willamette Stone State Park.

Canada

In Canadian land surveying, a base line is one of the many principal east-west lines that correspond to four tiers of townships (two tiers north and two south). The base lines are about 24 miles (39 km) apart, with the first base line at the 49th parallel, the western Canada–US border. It is, therefore equivalent to the standard parallel in the US system.

Ontario

In Ontario, a baseline forms a straight line parallel a geographical feature (mostly a lake, especially Lake Ontario or Lake Erie) that serves as a reference line for surveying a grid of property lots. The result of this surveying is the concession road and sideline system in use today.

Many prominent Ontario baselines lie on the surveyed boundaries of land treaties signed with First Nations peoples. For example, several baselines in Waterloo Region and Brant County (including Wilmot Line, Brant-Oxford Road, and Indian Line) follow the borders of the Haldimant Tract land grant to the Six Nations confederacy,^[1] leading to the patchwork road and lot network, surveyed parallel to the western edge of the tract, which can be seen in this area to this day. Jones Baseline which runs through Wellington County and Halton Region follows the original survey route marked by Augustus Jones after the Between the Lakes Purchase in 1792.^[2]

External links

The Principal Meridian Project (US)
Resources page of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
History of the Rectangular Survey System Note: This is a large file, approximately 46MB. Searchable PDF prepared by the author, C. A. White.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public Land Survey System</span> System of dividing land in the United States

The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1785 to survey land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, following the end of the American Revolution. Beginning with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio, the PLSS has been used as the primary survey method in the United States. Following the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory platted lands in the Northwest Territory. The Surveyor General was later merged with the United States General Land Office, which later became a part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Today, the BLM controls the survey, sale, and settling of lands acquired by the United States.

The Dominion Land Survey is the method used to divide most of Western Canada into one-square-mile (2.6 km²) sections for agricultural and other purposes. It is based on the layout of the Public Land Survey System used in the United States, but has several differences. The DLS is the dominant survey method in the Prairie provinces, and it is also used in British Columbia along the Railway Belt, and in the Peace River Block in the northeast of the province.

A township in some states of the United States is a small geographic area.

A survey township, sometimes called a Congressional township or just township, as used by the United States Public Land Survey System and by Canada's Dominion Land Survey is a nominally-square area of land that is nominally six survey miles on a side. Each 36-square-mile township is divided into 36 sections of one square mile each. The sections can be further subdivided for sale.

In Upper and Lower Canada, concession roads were laid out by the colonial government through undeveloped Crown land to provide access to rows of newly surveyed lots intended for farming by new settlers. The land that comprised a row of lots that spanned the entire length of a new township was "conceded" by the Crown for this purpose. Title to an unoccupied lot was awarded to an applicant in exchange for raising a house, performing roadwork and land clearance, and monetary payment. Concession roads and cross-cutting sidelines or sideroads were laid out in an orthogonal grid plan, often aligned so that concession roads ran (approximately) parallel to the north shore of Lake Ontario, or to the southern boundary line of a county.

The Willamette Stone was a small stone obelisk originally installed by the Department of Interior in 1885 in the western hills of Portland, Oregon in the United States to mark the intersection and origin of the Willamette meridian and Willamette baseline. It replaced a cedar stake placed by the Surveyor General of the Oregon Territory in 1851; this stake defined the grid system of sections and townships from which all real property in the states of Oregon and Washington has been measured following the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850. The Willamette meridian runs north–south, and the Willamette baseline runs east–west through the marker. The easternmost northeast corner of Washington County is sited on the marker.

The 41st parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 41 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean.

A range road in Canada is a road that runs north–south along a range grid line of the Dominion Land Survey. Range roads are perpendicular to township roads which run east–west along the township grid lines.

The Michigan meridian is the principal meridian used as a reference in the Michigan Survey, the survey of the U.S. state of Michigan in the early 19th century. It is located at 84 degrees, 21 minutes and 53 seconds west longitude at its northern terminus at Sault Ste. Marie, and varies very little from that line down the length of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preemption Line</span>

The Preemption Line divided the aboriginal lands of western New York State awarded to New York from those awarded to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by the Treaty of Hartford of 1786. It was defined as the meridian (north–south) line from the eighty-second milestone of the Pennsylvania–New York survey line at 76° 57' 58" W northward to Lake Ontario.

A principal meridian is a meridian used for survey control in a large region.

John C. Sullivan was a surveyor who established the Indian Boundary Line and the Sullivan Line which were to form the boundary between Native Americans and white settlers in Indian Territory from Iowa to Texas.

The Salt Lake meridian, established in 1855, in longitude 111° 54′ 00″ west from Greenwich, has its initial point at southeast corner of Temple Square, in Salt Lake City, Utah, extends north and south through the state, and, with the base line, through the initial, and coincident with the parallel of 40° 46′ 04″ north latitude, governs the surveys in the territory, except those referred to the Uintah meridian and Baseline projected from an initial point in latitude 40° 26′ 20″ north, longitude 109° 57′ 30″ west from Greenwich.

Seven Ranges Terminus is a stone surveying marker near Magnolia, Ohio that marks the completion of the first step in opening the lands northwest of the Ohio River to sale and settlement by Americans. This survey marked the first application of the rectangular plan for subdividing land.

The Congress Lands was a group of land tracts in Ohio that made land available for sale to members of the general public through land offices in various cities, and through the United States General Land Office. It consisted of three groups of surveys:

The Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges was a land tract in northeast Ohio that was established by the Congress early in the 19th century. It is located south of the Connecticut Western Reserve and Firelands, east of the Congress Lands South and East of the First Principal Meridian, north of the United States Military District and Seven Ranges, and west of Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maumee Road Lands</span>

Maumee Road Lands were a group of land tracts granted by the United States Congress to the state of Ohio in 1823 along the path of a proposed road in the northwest corner of the state.

Turnpike Lands were a group of land tracts granted by the United States Congress to the state of Ohio in 1827 along the path of a proposed road in the northwest corner of the state.

North and East of the First Principal Meridian is a survey and land description in the northwest part of the U.S. state of Ohio.

References

↑ "Haldimand Tract". Grand River Country. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
↑ Stephen Thorning (1 Feb 1995). "Augustus Jones determined present-day county boundaries". Wellington Advertiser. Retrieved 8 July 2019.

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[1] "Haldimand Tract". Grand River Country. Retrieved 8 July 2019.

[2] Stephen Thorning (1 Feb 1995). "Augustus Jones determined present-day county boundaries". Wellington Advertiser. Retrieved 8 July 2019.

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