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University of Hawaii

Honolulu Community College

GG101 Lab

Lesson 1 Notes

Public Land Survey System


Below are two images of the same location, 29 km (18 mi) NE of Columbia, Missouri, centered on latitude 39N, longitude 92W.

First is an aerial photograph in which you can clearly see the land usage according to the land survey system.

Next is a topographic map of the same region. Can you find the corresponding features on the two images? Can you correlate the PLS boundary lines on the map with the squares on the photo?


Links


These images came from the Microsoft Terraserver at http://terraserver.microsoft.com/

There you can locate any area within the US,by latitude/longitude or by street address, see aerial photos and topographic maps, and change the scale to zoom in or out. Try it and see if you can find your house!

Another source for images is http://terraserver.com/


Here is an airphoto of Honolulu and the corresponding topographic map.


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