Alberta legal land descriptions, explained

Reading one, right to left

Rural land in Alberta is described by the Alberta Township Survey, a grid laid over the province in the 1800s. A description such as NW-23-33-2-W5 is read from the big end:

You will see the same thing written NW 23-33-2 W5M, or with padding as NW-23-033-02-W5. They are all the same quarter.

Meridians, ranges and townships

Three meridians matter in Alberta. The 4th Meridian is the Saskatchewan border, at 110° west. The 5th is at 114° west, running through Calgary and a few kilometres east of Olds. The 6th is at 118° west, near Grande Prairie. Ranges are counted westward from each meridian until the next one begins.

Townships are counted northward from the 49th parallel, the border with Montana: Township 1 touches the border and Township 126 reaches the Northwest Territories. A township is also the name for the six-mile square where a township row and a range column cross — which is why "Township 33, Range 2" picks out one particular square.

Sections: 36 to a township

Each township is divided into 36 sections, a mile on a side. They are numbered back and forth like a plough working a field: section 1 is in the south-east corner, the numbers run west to 6, step up a row and run back east from 7 to 12, and so on up to section 36 in the north-east corner.

North is up: section 23 is in the fourth row from the bottom, second from the east.

Quarters and LSDs

A section splits into four quarter sections — NE, NW, SE, SW — of 160 acres each. For finer work, such as well sites, a section is also split into sixteen legal subdivisions (LSDs) of 40 acres, numbered the same back-and-forth way from LSD 1 in the south-east corner to LSD 16 in the north-east. An LSD is written in front: 12-23-33-2-W5.

Why your quarter is not exactly 160 acres

• Road allowances. Strips 66 feet wide were left between sections for roads: along every mile running north–south, and every second mile running east–west. They are outside the sections, but the roads built on them often are not quite where the survey put them.
• Correction lines. Meridians converge toward the pole, so every 24 miles the survey starts the grid afresh. Sections along the west side of a township, and roads that jog at a correction line, are the visible result.
• What is really there. A creek, a slough, a rail line, a yard site and a patch of bush all come out of the acres you actually farm.

That last one is the reason to measure. The title says 160; the seeded acres might be 148, and it is 148 that your seed, your inputs and your yield per acre should be worked on. The free acreage calculator will measure the piece you farm.

Range roads and township roads

Rural road numbers come from the same grid. A range road runs north–south and is named for its range and how many miles it lies west of that range's east edge: Range Road 22 is in Range 2, two miles in. A township road runs east–west and is named the same way from the township's south edge: Township Road 334 is in Township 33, four miles up.

Beyond Alberta

Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Peace River country of British Columbia were surveyed under the same system, so descriptions there read the same way, with their own meridians (W1, W2, W3, and in Manitoba E1 for land east of the Principal Meridian).

Using it in Pasture Path

Each field on your farm map can carry its legal land description, which is then printed on your season records — the form in which insurers, lenders and inspectors expect to see land identified. Pasture Path does not draw a quarter from its description; you draw the field you farm, and keep the description beside it.