Blog · September 24, 2026 · Pennsylvania
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania GIS Parcel Map Guide
LanCo View is Lancaster County’s free parcel viewer. Use it to check property lines and acreage on preserved farms and borough lots, search by address, owner or account number, and match land to the county’s 19th-century atlases.
Main page: Lancaster County, PA GIS & Parcel Viewer (official map link, Lancaster County facts and neighboring maps).
Platbookmapper is an Amazon Associate. If you buy through an Amazon link on this page, we earn a commission. The link is a product, not the county map.
Lancaster County is famous for its farms — some of the most productive non-irrigated farmland in the country, worked by Amish, Mennonite, and other families for generations. It is also a growing region of boroughs and suburbs. The county’s LanCo View map is the official public GIS for finding a parcel in either world.
LanCo View
LanCo View is Lancaster County’s ArcGIS web map. It shows parcel boundaries, aerial imagery, and property information, with layers for municipal boundaries and other reference data. The county’s assessment office maintains the parcel records behind it.
Platbookmapper links to it from the Lancaster County row of our Pennsylvania directory and from the national map.
Search LanCo View by address, owner or account number
- Open LanCo View and wait for it to load.
- Search by address, owner, or account/parcel number.
- Click the parcel for owner, acreage, and assessment details.
- Check the municipality layer so you know which township or borough governs the land.
- Switch to aerial imagery to see barns, fields, and woodlots.
- Record the parcel number and a dated screenshot.
City, boroughs, and townships
The City of Lancaster is the county seat. Around it are dozens of boroughs — Lititz, Ephrata, Elizabethtown, Manheim, Mount Joy, Columbia, Millersville, Strasburg, and more — and townships that cover the countryside. Well-known villages like Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand are unincorporated communities within townships. In Pennsylvania, each municipality typically handles its own zoning, so two parcels on the same road can fall under different rules. Note the municipality first, then find its zoning ordinance. Our zoning overlays guide explains how to use these layers.
Lancaster County plat book and the 1864, 1875 and 1899 atlases
Lancaster County has no current commercial owner-name plat book. LanCo View is the free current ownership map. What the county does have is a strong run of historic atlases showing landowners and acreage: an 1864 atlas, Everts & Stewart’s 1875 Combination Atlas Map of Lancaster County, and an 1899 atlas. LancasterHistory holds all three in its reading room. The 1875 atlas has also been digitized by Franklin & Marshall College’s library. For anyone tracing a family farm or an old house, these atlases pair naturally with today’s parcel lines.
Lancaster County acreage map: preserved farms and landowner lookups
Lancaster County runs one of the most active farmland-preservation programs in the United States, and a large number of farms are protected by agricultural conservation easements that restrict non-farm development permanently. Many townships also use agricultural zoning that limits how often farmland can be subdivided. For buyers, that means a farm’s acreage does not tell you how many houses could be built on it. Check with the township and look for recorded easements. Our guide to finding easements on a parcel map walks through that research.
Hunters here usually ask farm families directly for permission, and LanCo View or a plat-style ownership map tells you whose door to knock on. Public hunting is on the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s State Game Lands, which the commission maps separately.
Agricultural security areas, zoning and the tax map
Pennsylvania lets landowners enroll farms in agricultural security areas, which offer certain protections for farming operations. Many farms also receive preferential assessment for agricultural use. These details can appear in assessment records or municipal documents. If you are buying a farm, ask how any enrollment or preferential assessment would be affected by the sale or a change in use.
How to find property lines in Lancaster County
- Look up every account number that makes up the property in LanCo View. Farms are often several parcels.
- Pull the deeds and any subdivision or survey plans from the Recorder of Deeds.
- Walk the lines with the deed in hand. Old calls to stones, trees and fence rows still matter here.
- Where the description is old or unclear, hire a surveyor before you fence, sell off a lot or build.
River towns and the western edge
The Susquehanna River forms the county’s western border, with Columbia, Marietta, and other river towns along it and wooded hills in the southern end of the county. River parcels bring floodplain questions, and steep river hills can limit building sites. Check the floodplain layers and our flood zones guide before you buy.
Growth around the boroughs
Lancaster County also has growing suburbs around the city and boroughs, with new subdivisions, apartments, and commercial projects. Buyers use LanCo View to see which fields have been approved for development and how new projects fit into township plans. Township websites and planning commission agendas show what is proposed.
How accurate is LanCo View?
Good for seeing how a farm is put together, not for placing a fence or settling a line. Many Lancaster deeds go back generations and describe boundaries by metes and bounds with references to neighbors, stones and streams, so the drawn parcel is an interpretation. Deeds and plats are recorded with the Lancaster County Recorder of Deeds, and the county assessment office maintains valuations. A Pennsylvania licensed professional land surveyor determines boundaries. For neighboring York County and other Pennsylvania viewers, see our York County property viewer note and the Lycoming County guide, or browse the Pennsylvania county GIS hub.
Research tips, and what to try when LanCo View won’t load
- Farm properties often include several parcels; look up each account number.
- Older deeds describe boundaries by metes and bounds with references to neighbors and landmarks, so the parcel map is a guide, not a substitute.
- A Lancaster County road map helps when you are driving township roads that GPS apps name inconsistently.
LanCo View can take a while on a slow connection. Wait for the parcel layer to draw before you search, and try another browser if the search box won’t respond. It’s a full ArcGIS web app. The Lancaster County row of our Pennsylvania directory keeps the current link.
Who uses LanCo View
Farm families expanding or dividing land, homebuyers in the boroughs, builders, land-preservation staff, appraisers, surveyors, and title examiners. Out-of-town buyers use it to understand how compact and checkerboarded the farm landscape really is.
Frequently asked questions
What is LanCo View?
LanCo View is Lancaster County’s ArcGIS web map, with parcel boundaries, aerial imagery and property information from the county assessment office.
How do I know if a Lancaster County farm is preserved?
Preserved farms carry recorded agricultural conservation easements. Check the deed records and ask the county’s farmland preservation program.
Are there old Lancaster County plat maps?
Yes. Atlases from 1864, 1875 and 1899 show landowners and acreage. LancasterHistory holds them, and the 1875 atlas is digitized by Franklin & Marshall College.
Can I find my property lines without a survey?
You can get a good idea from LanCo View and the deed. Old metes-and-bounds descriptions often need a licensed surveyor to interpret on the ground.
Open the official Lancaster County GIS viewer Lancaster County in the Platbookmapper directory
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 — especially for fences, setbacks, or boundary disputes.