Parcel maps, property search, and county GIS guides

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• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Georgia Land Lot? In much of Georgia, a land lot is a numbered parcel in a numbered district of a named section or county survey, created by the state lotteries and later surveys. It is not a subdivision lot. Deeds that say Land Lot 148 of the 5th District are using this older grid.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Texas Abstract Number? A Texas abstract number is the index number for an original survey in a county, tied to a survey name and a certificate or grant. It locates the parent survey. It is not a subdivision lot number, and it is not the same thing as a modern appraisal-district parcel id.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Engineer’s Chain? An engineer’s chain is 100 feet, divided into 100 links of one foot. It is not Gunter’s chain of 66 feet. Old road, railroad, and some city notes use the 100-foot chain, and converting them as if they were 66-foot chains shrinks the line.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is the U.S. Survey Foot? The U.S. survey foot is a foot definition used in many state plane coordinate systems, slightly longer than the international foot. The difference is tiny on a lot and real on a long coordinate. You do not convert it by pacing, and you do not ignore it when you move coordinates between software.
• Sep 30, 2026 What More or Less Means in a Deed More or less tells you the area or the distance is an estimate beside a stronger description. It is not a license to move a line until the acres come out even. Monuments and the plat still control when the law’s order of calls says they do.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is the Priority of Calls? Priority of calls is the order courts and surveyors use when parts of a description disagree. Intent and monuments generally outrank courses and distances, and area often ranks last. It is a way to resolve conflict, not a way to ignore a clear deed.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Senior Deed? A senior deed is the earlier conveyance when one grantor sold pieces of a tract at different times. The first buyer’s description is senior. Later deeds are junior and take what is left. Seniority is about time and the chain, not about which neighbor built the nicer fence.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is Simultaneous Conveyance? Simultaneous conveyance means the lots or parcels were created together in one act, usually a subdivision plat or a single deed that cuts several lots at once. No lot is senior to another. Conflicts are resolved so the whole plan stays intact, not by awarding the overlap to the lowest lot number.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Passing Call? A passing call notes a feature the surveyor crossed along a line, such as a creek, a road, or a fence, with the distance where it was crossed. It documents the route. It is not automatically a corner, and it does not by itself turn the feature into the boundary.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Adjoiner Call? An adjoiner call describes a boundary by naming the neighbor’s land, such as thence along lands of Rivera. The neighbor’s line becomes the monument of the call. It is not a vague gesture at whoever lives there now.
• Sep 30, 2026 What a Call for a Stone Wall Means A call for a stone wall uses the wall as a monument. The deed may run to the wall, along the wall, or to the center of it. Which of those it says decides whether the wall is the edge or the line runs down the middle. A wall the deed never mentions is only a wall.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Gore? A gore is a thin, often triangular strip of land left between two surveys or two descriptions that were supposed to meet and did not. It is a gap with a shape. It is not a bonus you add to the nearest yard, and it is not something a parcel viewer meant to depict.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Survey Hiatus? A hiatus is a gap between two original surveys that do not quite meet, leaving an unconveyed or disputed strip between their record lines. It is a survey geometry problem from the creating surveys. It is not the ordinary difference between a fence and a tax map.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Basis of Bearing? The basis of bearing is the note that says what north the plat’s bearings refer to. It may be a recorded deed line, geodetic north, grid north, or an assumed north. Without it, the numbers on the courses have no reference, and you cannot compare them to a compass.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Declination Does on an Old Plat Declination is the angle between magnetic north and true north at a place and a date. Old plats and deeds sometimes give magnetic bearings. Using today’s phone compass on an 1880 magnetic bearing ignores more than a century of change in the magnetic field.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Azimuth on a Survey? An azimuth is a direction measured as a full-circle angle, usually clockwise from north, from 0 to 360 degrees. A bearing is a quadrant angle, such as north 30 degrees east. They can describe the same line, and mixing the two notations reverses courses.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Record and Measured Mean on a Plat Record is the bearing or distance taken from an older deed or plat. Measured is what this survey observed. When a sheet prints both, it is comparing its work to the record. Neither number, alone, is a new deed.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Delta Angle on a Curve? Delta is the central angle of a circular curve, the angle at the radius point between the start of the curve and the end. It is not the bearing of the road and not the deflection you see standing on the curb. With the radius, delta fixes the curve.
• Sep 30, 2026 What PC and PT Mean on a Plat PC is the point of curvature, where a straight tangent ends and the curve begins. PT is the point of tangency, where the curve ends and a straight tangent begins again. They are the hinges of the curve. They are not lot corners unless the plat also makes them corners.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Nontangent Curve? A nontangent curve meets the previous course at an angle instead of gliding off a tangent. The plat has to give a radial bearing or a chord bearing so you can place it. Treating it as a simple tangent curve twists the lot.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Radial Lot Line? A radial lot line is a side line that, if extended, would hit the radius point of the curve it leaves. It meets the curved front at a right angle to the tangent. It is a design choice the plat has to show. Not every side line on a curved street is radial.
• Sep 30, 2026 How to Read a Curve Table A curve table collects radius, delta, arc length, chord bearing, and chord length for each numbered curve on the plat. The number on the arc has to match the row. Mixing row 3 with curve 5 builds a different lot.
• Sep 30, 2026 How to Read a Line Table A line table lists bearing and distance for each numbered straight segment when those numbers would clutter the map. The number on the line must match the row. A line table is only the straight courses. Curves stay in the curve table.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Northing and Easting Mean A northing is a coordinate counted north from a defined origin. An easting is counted east from that origin. Together they name a point in a stated grid. Without the datum, the zone, and the units, the pair is just two large numbers.