The Alberta Township System (ATS) is a land

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

system used in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

and other parts of

western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

History and background

In principle there is a mathematical basis for the Alberta Township System (ATS) variant of the

Dominion Land Survey The Dominion Land Survey (DLS; french: links=no, arpentage des terres fédérales, ATF) is the method used to divide most of Western Canada into one-square-mile (2.6 km2) sections for agricultural and other purposes. It is based on the layout ...

(DLS) system as implemented in Canada. The implementation in western Canada reflects a number of slightly different approaches, as well as a large number of errors. Long before the Dominion Land Surveyor (DLS) first came into official existence in 1872, licensed surveyors known as provincial land surveyors had been functioning in the Provinces of

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

and

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

(then called

Canada West The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report on the ...

and

Canada East Canada East (french: links=no, Canada-Est) was the northeastern portion of the United Province of Canada. Lord Durham's Report investigating the causes of the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions recommended merging those two colonies. The new ...

) under an Act of 1849. Establishing a system of examination for new aspirants to the title of "Dominion Land Surveyor" was officially adopted in 1874. In 1910 The Alberta Surveyors Act prescribed the system and the methods whereby land surveys were to be carried out under the general purview of a provincial director of surveys whose responsibility it was to see that all survey work was performed in accordance with the provisions of that Act. The system is also used by provincial governments when selling exploration rights, and oil and gas wells are referenced by their location as defined within the Alberta Township System.

How it works

Below is a brief description of how to lay out the DLS grid for

. Lay off ticks from the 49th parallel of latitude to the 60th parallel. This gives 127

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

lines. The 49th parallel of

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

is the first base line of the ATS system. On it lay off ticks westwards starting at the 110th line of

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

(4th DLS meridian). Start over at the 114th and 118th lines of longitude (5th and 6th DLS meridians). Extend these ticks due north (following a line of constant longitude) to the first correction line. This gets you your first set of range lines. Starting at the 49th parallel (first base line) go directly north. This gets you to the second base line. At the latitude corresponding to this distance from the 49th parallel lay off 6-mile-6-chain ticks westwards from 110th

meridian Meridian or a meridian line (from Latin ''meridies'' via Old French ''meridiane'', meaning “midday”) may refer to Science * Meridian (astronomy), imaginary circle in a plane perpendicular to the planes of the celestial equator and horizon * ...

as you did at the 1st base line. The circumference of the earth has decreased as you went northwards, so there will be fewer full ticks than there were one base line south. Extend 12 miles 6 chains north and 12 miles 6 chains south from these ticks. This gets you your next set of range lines. You will note there is an offset between the range lines extending north from the lower base line and those extending south from the current ones. This offset occurs along what is called a correction line. Repeat the base line process every 24 miles 12 chains northwards (to the 32nd). All this will result in a mesh of cells nominally six miles (plus 3 or 6

chain A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. A c ...

s for road allowances) on a side. Each such cell is called a township (not to be confused with the township lines laid off earlier). Subdivide the township into 36 sections by laying off ticks of one-sixth of each township side and connecting them by north–south and east–west lines. The sections are numbered

boustrophedon Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...

ically starting from the southeast corner of the township. Sections can be similarly subdivided into quarters by placing and connecting ticks at the halfway point on each section side. Use the same process to subdivide sections into legal

subdivisions Subdivision may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Subdivision (metre), in music * ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009 * "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2) * ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005 * "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...

(LSD) except place the tick at the one-quarter waypoints. LSDs are numbered boustrophedonically starting at the southeast corner of the section. While the ATS format is proprietary, online conversion tools have been developed. *Alberta Geological Survey converts the system to

geographical coordinates The geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or ellipsoidal coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on the Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the vario ...

External links

Alberta Township Fabric at ArcGIS.com

LSD + GPS + UTM coordinates (batch) conversion
Free map converters & tools
Conversion tools from Alberta Government

ATS Mapper
Create Alberta Township System geo-referenced KML maps that can be viewed in Google Earth or ArcGIS. License:PWYW

References

{{reflist Geography of Alberta Land surveying systems Surveying of Canada

History and background

How it works

See also

External links

References