I recently moved and I asked someone what county are we in and they said 'this is a township so its better than a county'. So what makes that true?
2006-12-31 13:50:48 · 5 answers · asked by STARS 3 in Business & Finance ➔ Renting & Real Estate
A county has political boundaries.
After the Revolutionary War the government began surveying the United States, using the Governmental Survey System also known as the rectangular survey system." The survey included a checkerboard of identical squares covering a given area. These squares were called quadrangles and are 24 miles by 24 miles. Each quadrangle is further divided into 16 squares called townships. Columns of townships are called ranges, and are numbered sequentially east or west of one of the 36 principal meridians. The United states were further surveyed. Townships are six mile by six mile squares. Some people mistake towns for townships.
A Town, like a County, has polictical boundaries.
The difference between a town and a city is in their charter.
Louiegirl, I didn't say "politics" had anything to do with it, just that the boundaries for cities and counties are political. Which is to say that the bondaries were voted on at one time or another. It is more common in cities and towns right now, because most counties have been established for a long time. The cities or towns will annex area into their jurisdictions to expand. New counties will also vote to exist and they provide a plan that identifies their boundaries (see the city and county of Broomfield, CO). So by political, I simply mean that it isn't based strictly on geography, like a quandrandle, township or range.
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Why a township might be better... It is possible that the person who indicated that the township is better than a county thought so because it is a smaller geographical area and if it was rural, most people in the area would know each other and stop and help if they saw you stranded on the side of the road. Some small areas are much more neighborly than others.
2006-12-31 14:15:05 · answer #1 · answered by Dawn J 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
loladwreb... and real estate dawn have given you excellent answers, however i do not agree that politics has anything whatsoever to do with one county or township or city being different from the other. i'd like dawn to explain how politics comes into this issue at all.
you can download one of the greatest search engines free, called copernic, from copernic.com, which combines results from all popular search engines, so you get a more explicit answer. ask it: "what is a township?," and you will get a very definitive explanation by the first three non-commercial hits, which includes wikipedia. you then have a historical understanding of that word too.
all parcels of land sold in the united states are surveyed. on the survey are words enclosed in a paragraph that you read essentially backwards which is called that parcel's "legal description." the survey is the drawing of the parcel's beginning and ending lot lines.
parcels are contained (per the legal description) inside of "townships." a township is a subsection of a county, just as a county is a subsection of a state.
sometimes parcels are contained within "unincorporated" parts of cities. if you buy such real estate, it is important to understand what municipal services, rendered by the township, will be supplied to you in exchange for your paying real estate taxes to the county. you do not pay real estate taxes to a city or to a township.
a township or many townships might be contained within one city, or a township in turn could hold a variety of towns or villages.
(the only state in the union that does not use the word "county" for the divisions of land contained in the state is Louisana. it calls counties "parishes.")
2006-12-31 14:44:51 · answer #2 · answered by Louiegirl_Chicago 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is no definate size differance in area or population, however a township is usually exactly 36 square miles except for water bodies or county lines in the way. A county usualy has at least one town or city, and towns and cities can be of any size in population or area.
2016-05-23 01:44:29 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A township is in a county I think a township is less than 6,000 people but I'm not sure on the figure
2006-12-31 14:02:43 · answer #4 · answered by Fred S 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"A township is a territorial subdivision six miles long, and six miles wide and containing 36 sections, each one mile square". A county is bigger.
2006-12-31 14:14:12 · answer #5 · answered by loladrewblue 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋