Blog · September 30, 2026
How to Read a Quarter-Quarter Call
A quarter-quarter call names a quarter of a quarter section, the classic forty. You read the last fraction as the small piece, inside the quarter named before it, inside one section. Swapping two quarters moves the land a half-mile.
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A worked sentence
Take the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 10. Start with Section 10 as a square. Divide it into four quarters. Hold the northeast quarter. Divide that quarter into four smaller squares. The southwest one of those smaller squares is the parcel. It sits near the middle of the section, on the southwest side of the northeast quarter. It is not the southwest quarter of the section, and it is not the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter. If you shade as you read, shade only at the end. If you shade the first quarter you see and stop, you have colored 160 acres instead of the forty the deed named.
Halves of quarters and other stacks
Deeds also say the west half of the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter. Same habit: find the southeast quarter, then its northeast quarter, then the west half of that. Each added fraction cuts the piece again. Parentheses in a caption are your friends if the scrivener used them, and a trap if you ignore them. A comma sometimes marks an additional parcel, so the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter, and the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter, is two forties, not one L-shaped mystery. Read and as a possible second parcel. Then check whether a later sentence excepts something out of one of them.
Nominal acres and the map
A quarter-quarter of a regular section is nominally 40 acres, a quarter is 160, a section is 640. Say nominally. The original survey’s excess or deficiency, a road the deed does not include, and a prior exception all change the ground. The assessor’s acreage is another number, computed from a tax polygon. None of those numbers rewrite the fraction. County GIS is useful for finding which parcel id the office associated with that caption. It is not a survey of the quarter lines. A phone GPS track around a field is not a survey either. If the forty must be staked, a surveyor recovers the controlling corners and runs the aliquot lines.
What to do next
- Write the call in nested order before you draw.
- Shade only the smallest piece, unless and adds another.
- Keep Section, Township, Range, and meridian in the same note.
- Treat printed acres as more or less unless the deed makes area the substance of the grant.
The mix-up to avoid
Reading left to right and shading the first quarter named, which is usually the larger container. The piece being conveyed is the smallest fraction, the one the sentence leads with in standard wording.
Questions people ask
Why do some captions put the small piece last?
Styles vary. Some say Section 10, the NE1/4 of the SW1/4. You still apply the fractions to the section. If the grammar is ambiguous, compare the prior deed in the chain instead of guessing the larger acreage.
Is NE 1/4 SW 1/4 the same as NE1/4 of SW1/4?
Yes, that abbreviation is the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter. The slash form without the word of is standard in notes and tax rolls. The order is still small piece, then the quarter it sits in.
Find the county map
Search the county on the Platbookmapper home page. The directory links to the official parcel viewer. It does not draw the lots, and the line on the screen is an assessment map, not a survey.
Not a survey. County GIS and tax parcel maps are assessment and planning layers. They are not a substitute for a recorded plat, deed, or licensed survey.