Monday, February 04, 2008

Resources for Township Maps

Harold Anderson, a fellow Hoosier blogger, over at Midwestern Microhistory spotlighted a couple of websites for obtaining Outline maps for counties. In that post, he asked "Now, can anyone suggest a site that has a township map for each and every county in the US?"

Maybe. Well, sort of. In a round-a-bout way. Maybe Joe Beine could add another category for locating townships on his Genealogy Roots site for finding record sources on the internet?

The US Census Bureau has State/County Subdivision Outline Maps. You can't search for a township on the site but what you can get is a pdf file for each state that displays the names and boundaries for counties, county subdivisions (i.e. townships), places, and consolidated cities.

Here is their Map file for Indiana, as an example.

Combine the US Census Bureau maps with the USGS GNIS Website and you should be able to pinpoint the location and "see" where it is located on the maps. USGS is the U.S. Geological Survey and GNIS is the Geographic Names Information System.

You could also use Google to search for "township maps +Name of State" (without the quotes) to locate other websites that might be of use. For example using township maps +Indiana I found this Indiana resource:

Indiana Townships

Their map of Northeast Indiana (pdf)

Did you know there are 1008 townships and 92 counties in the state of Indiana?

And, just for the heck of it, take a look at Indiana Historical Maps. The site doesn't have any township information, but it does have some neat old maps.

1 comment:

Harold Henderson said...

Thanks, Becky. This is great!