When surveyors work with property boundaries and other features described in your deed, they always work within the framework of the Public Land Survey System. Surveyors can also provide other services, such as flood mapping and new road layout.

Surveyors are most commonly employed by landowners to mark or remark property boundaries, easements and other legally deeded features. This work is carried out by licensed surveyors using specialized equipment and techniques. People conduct surveys when they want to locate property boundaries, roads, structures, watercourses and other physical characteristics of the land. It’s the science of determining relative positions of existing points on the earth’s surface or of establishing such points. Land surveying is the process of gathering and analyzing information about the physical earth. We also discuss the various types of maps used in woodland management and the technology used to collect and analyze geographic data.

In this publication, we describe surveying with an emphasis on the Public Land Survey System, which serves as the basis for describing property boundaries in the Pacific Northwest. Surveys and maps are interrelated tools that help land managers understand property resources and make management decisions.

Crows foot method map overlay