Someone just told me with absolute certainty that a section is a mile by a mile and a half!

And he grew up in a country on a farm!

I didn't bother trying to find out how many acres he believes there are in a section.

So to him, a section is 1.5 square miles.

The rest of us, it is 1 square mile.

I can see one reason for him to think that. The home section on the farm he grew up on is made up of quarter sections in a pattern:

X
XXX

To think that a section is one mile by one and a half miles, he must be ignoring the fact that a neighbor owns that missing half section chunk on the edge.

He's wrong and you are right. 1 square mile. It's still 640 acres. ETA I don't mean that has to be perfectly square 1x1. I mean the area of 640 acres in sq footage.

Actually, it depends on what part of Texas you are referencing. A section is generally thought of as 640 acres being a square mile. Along the coast and in other areas of SE Tx, the original Spanish land grants were sometimes in Leagues and the borders were the coast lines and river channels so the square mile section was not possible. So some "Sections" today are not 640 acres but are referred to as " Sections 32", etc., with each section being numbered in the county maps and deed records.

ETA that a league is 4,428 acres and some of the old large coastal ranches still refer to certain leagues, which are still named after the person they were granted to- sometimes for military service in the Texas Revolution or other service. Interesting that the earliest and most desired tracts were along the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers in the map above. Would have been prior to some of the railroads and highways being built.

Mas89 said:

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Actually, it depends on what part of Texas you are referencing. A section is generally thought of as 640 acres being a square mile. Along the coast and in other areas of SE Tx, the original Spanish land grants were sometimes in Leagues and the borders were the coast lines and river channels so the square mile section was not possible. So some "Sections" today are not 640 acres but are referred to as " Sections 32", etc., with each section being numbered in the county maps and deed records.

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That's interesting.

Agree - but those get treated like addresses than a generic section of a prescribed area, which I think the OP is talking about. To your point - I live in San Juan de Carracitos land grant and lots of our legal descriptions begin with 'Share xx' that were portions of those grants.

There is a difference in an area measurement and a parcel description even if they are spelled and pronounced the same. Context is everything.

Agreed. A section is 640 ac…period. You might describe a parcel of land as a section / league / block, etc, but when you mean section to describe an area it is always 640 ac. Ask any landman, lawyer or professional in real estate, oil & gas, minerals, etc and this is not a question.

Now let's talk porciones?

All I got is a quarter section up by Lake Eufala.

1/2 mile by how far you can see. It paid back then to sell to someone nearsighted.

While we are on the subject, I'll add that modern survey equipment sometimes reveal a different acreage for the land parcel being surveyed compared to old survey measurements. We have sold old family owned ranches in rough terrain where the old surveys were done by stretching chains from point a to point b and estimating the arc of the chain. When they were surveyed many years later, the acreage was off 3- 5 percent from what was purchased using the old surveys. Near Vanderpool and Pumpville.
So no, a section is not Always 640 acres. The internet and online deed records have made research so much easier compared to when I used to spend days in random small county clerks offices researching records.

Quote:

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We have sold old family owned ranches in rough terrain where the old surveys were done by stretching chains from point a to point b and estimating the arc of the chain.

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I posted this on the history board but it fits with this thread. Gunters chain is one the more impressive stories in American History.

https://thehistoricalinsights.page/2026/04/jeffersonian-grid-history.html

Hewey Calloway said:

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All I got is a quarter section up by Lake Eufala.

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say hi to Ruth Ann and Lynn for me next time they visit

1900.8 varas by 1900.8 varas equals 640 acres or one full section....

A section is 1 mile x 1 mile aka 640 acres. Even google knows this.

In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), a section is an area nominally one square mile (2.6 square kilometers), containing 640 acres (260 hectares)

Texas general land office maps. And a google search with a county will have lots of Amazon, eBay, etc offerings.

We'll call it… a section.

640 acres or a square mile.

That whole skit is nails.

By the way, this came up when I mentioned a lawsuit years ago regarding ownership of a section of land that went to trial in a state court in my area to a couple of people. One of them is a dude from a big city. I didn't know if he knew what a section is so I added that it is an area of a square mile. Then the other guy stepped in and "corrected" me saying that it is a mile by a mile and a half. The city dude immediately accepted the misinformation as being true.

The city dude then said something like "surveyors don't use the same units of measurements as we do" and so we can't expect to understand their terms. From that remark, he seems to believe that the term section is an incomprehensible surveyor's term.

It crossed my mind that he might think that surveyor's use different units of measure depending on the direction.

At that point, I just walked off in complete disbelief.

It is still unclear to me whether they think that a section is a measurement of area or a rectangle with the specific dimensions of 1 mile by 1.5 miles, but after their comments, asking them seems rather pointless.

It crossed my mind that he might think that surveyor's use different units of measure depending on the direction.



I'm going to use this on new hires for wetland surveying.

eric76 said:

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By the way, this came up when I mentioned a lawsuit years ago regarding ownership of a section of land that went to trial in a state court in my area to a couple of people. One of them is a dude from a big city. I didn't know if he knew what a section is so I added that it is an area of a square mile. Then the other guy stepped in and "corrected" me saying that it is a mile by a mile and a half. The city dude immediately accepted the misinformation as being true.

The city dude then said something like "surveyors don't use the same units of measurements as we do" and so we can't expect to understand their terms. From that remark, he seems to believe that the term section is an incomprehensible surveyor's term.

It crossed my mind that he might think that surveyor's use different units of measure depending on the direction.

At that point, I just walked off in complete disbelief.

It is still unclear to me whether they think that a section is a measurement of area or a rectangle with the specific dimensions of 1 mile by 1.5 miles, but after their comments, asking them seems rather pointless.

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Sounds like you're dealing with a couple of dummies. Often wrong, while never in doubt.

Sounds like an aunt I had. When at the ranch talking feed or hay she argued until blue in the face that a ton was 1000#. I learned to only refer to a feed order as a ton, not specify weight.

mwlkr said:

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27,878,400 square feet. Configure it however you want.

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In common vernacular, yes.

But from a purely technical standpoint - the Rectangular Survey System (or Public Land Survey System, depending on who you talk go and what title they want to use) specifically defines what a section is, among other things.

Quote:

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The Rectangular Survey System, also known as the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), is a standardized method used across most of the United States to divide and describe land. Established in 1785, it replaced the older "metes and bounds" method by creating a precise grid framework based on meridians and baselines.

Key Components
The system measures and segments land using a specific hierarchy of grids

• Principal Meridians: Imaginary vertical lines running north-to-south.
• Base Lines: Imaginary horizontal lines running east-to-west.
• Quadrangles: Areas measuring \(24 \text{ miles} \times 24 \text{ miles}\) created by standard parallels and guide meridians.
• Townships: Created by intersecting range and township lines every 6 miles. Each township is \(6 \text{ miles} \times 6 \text{ miles}\) (36 square miles).
• Sections: Each township is divided into 36 equal sections. A section is \(1 \text{ mile} \times 1 \text{ mile}\) and contains exactly 640 acres.
• Sub-sections: Sections are further divided into halves (\(320 \text{ acres}\)) or quarters (\(160 \text{ acres}\)).

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There are areas of Texas that because of our history with Spanish land grants didn't use that system. But the Constitution of Texas firmly established a Section as 640 acres in a 1 mile by 1 mile square.

How land is surveyed and divided in Texas depends a lot on what region you are talking about and how far back you go. In my neck of the woods, the largest section (beyond state and county) is grant, then generally league, then section then individual boundaries. But that section doesn't denote 640 acres, it is just a sub division of what league you are in. League, labor and vara are the basis for most of the property boundaries here. Go to west Texas and they have almost always operated on the Rectangular system. South Texas has the same old spanish land grant stuff we have. East Texas is a little different in a lot of areas too.

Mas89 said:

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While we are on the subject, I'll add that modern survey equipment sometimes reveal a different acreage for the land parcel being surveyed compared to old survey measurements. We have sold old family owned ranches in rough terrain where the old surveys were done by stretching chains from point a to point b and estimating the arc of the chain. When they were surveyed many years later, the acreage was off 3- 5 percent from what was purchased using the old surveys. Near Vanderpool and Pumpville.
So no, a section is not Always 640 acres. The internet and online deed records have made research so much easier compared to when I used to spend days in random small county clerks offices researching records.

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A "section" when referring to the area of the land is always 640 acres. You're describing errors in measurement caused by old technology and and terrain.

So while an old survey may have provided a legal description and referenced "Sections" that turned out to not be 640 acres those are errors not a change in definition. Sold a piece of land formerly described as a "section" but instead of being 640 acres the piece of land was 5% larger at 672 acres then that doesn't make a "Section" 672 acres. If your cat had kittens in the oven that wouldn't make them biscuits.

Similarly, as centerpole pointed out those old Spanish land grants which described sections weren't about units of measure but as effectively "addresses."