Blog · October 13, 2026 · North Dakota
Using the Walsh County GIS Map
Open the official Walsh County parcel viewer, find an owner or a vacant tract, and learn which land records back up what the map shows.
Main page: Walsh County, ND GIS & Parcel Viewer (official map link, Walsh County facts and neighboring maps).
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Land questions in Walsh County start in the same place: the official parcel map. Here's how to use the Walsh County GIS map to find owners, acreage and boundary lines, and where it falls short.
We'll cover the official map, the communities and terrain around Fairdale, how property lines work in North Dakota, and where the deeds come from.
Getting into the Walsh County ArcGIS parcel map
The official map is the Walsh County ArcGIS parcel map, which runs on an Esri ArcGIS web map. Use the search box to find a Walsh County parcel by owner name, address or parcel number, or zoom in and click a lot to open its record. We track the link on our Walsh County directory page, so check there if it stops loading.
Who uses the Walsh County parcel map
Different people come to the Walsh County parcel map for different reasons. A hunter driving the back roads near Nash can match a promising woodlot to an owner name in seconds. Land shoppers looking between Fairdale and Conway measure road frontage on the map and check whether a tract is landlocked. An owner in Fordville planning a fence or an outbuilding pulls the parcel first, then the recorded plat.
Getting oriented in Walsh County
Start your bearings with Grafton, the county seat, then Adams, Ardoch, Conway, and Edinburg. The county was organized in 1881 and named for George H. Walsh, so some tracts carry a long chain of deeds. Roughly 10,305 people (Census Bureau, 2023) share Walsh County's 1,282 square miles of land. Away from Fairdale, expect big ownership blocks: at this density, ranch, farm and timber tracts fill most of the map. The Red River of the North and Hudson Bay are part of the Walsh County landscape, and creek or shoreline tracts are common there. Public land in or near the county, including Ardoch National Wildlife Refuge, changes how nearby private land sells.
The Walsh County economy in brief
By the Census Bureau's 2022 count, 354 business establishments operated in Walsh County. Retail trade had the most, followed by other services and wholesale trade. The local economy leans harder than average on agriculture and forestry support services, wholesale of nondurable goods (including farm products), and machinery manufacturing. Timber tracts in Walsh County change hands for wood value as much as for building, so check the parcel record and the aerial photo together. For a land buyer in Walsh County, that mix hints at who your neighbors and competing bidders are likely to be.
Property lines in Walsh County, North Dakota
Zoom in far enough on a lot in Fairdale and you may notice lines crossing driveways or splitting sheds, a normal quirk of tax mapping. Because North Dakota is a section-township-range state, the legal description of a rural tract in Walsh County reads like a grid reference that you can match to the section lines on the map. For rural ground near Nash, a recorded survey or a new one is the only reliable source for the true line.
Using the Walsh County GIS map to find vacant land
A vacant-land search near Grafton, step by step:
- Turn on the photo basemap and work outward from Conway one road at a time, flagging parcels with no buildings.
- Click each empty tract near Nash and note the owner, acreage and mailing address.
- Trace the frontage on any tract near Nash; without it, access depends on a recorded easement.
- Compare the record's land value against similar parcels on the same road out of Conway.
- Check the flood layer and ask about septic and permits; open land in Walsh County isn't automatically buildable.
To double-check acreage on a parcel near Nash, see how to find the acreage of a property.
Private and public hunting ground in Walsh County
Near Adams, a single field edge can separate two owners with very different answers about access; the map tells you which is which. If you're hunting public ground like Ardoch National Wildlife Refuge, use the parcel map to see where the public boundary meets private land. Season dates and license rules come from the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. In the field near Grafton, respect posted signs and painted boundaries even where the map line looks different.
Behind the map: land records in Walsh County
Every line on the Walsh County map traces back to a recorded deed or plat, and the county's recording office keeps those documents. The office title varies by state (register of deeds, recorder, county clerk or clerk of court), so check the Walsh County government website for the right one. Easements and rights-of-way are usually in recorded documents, not on the parcel map, so read the deed itself for a tract near Nash.
Nearby parcel maps
A farm that runs from Walsh County into Cavalier County will have separate parcel records on each side; the other neighbors are Marshall County, MN, Grand Forks County, Nelson County, and Pembina County. Neighboring maps for Walsh County are a click away on our North Dakota page.
Quick answers
Where do property lines run on a Walsh County, ND lot?
Pull up the tract on the Walsh County map, copy its legal description, and compare it with the deed. Exact corners take a surveyor.
What is the county seat of Walsh County?
Grafton is the county seat.
How do I look up a property owner in Walsh County, ND?
For land near Fairdale with no street address, pan to it on the map and click it; the record names the owner.
Can hunters use the Walsh County, North Dakota parcel map to find landowners?
The map tells you who owns the woods near Nash; the owner decides whether you can hunt there.
Open the official Walsh County, ND parcel map Walsh 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.