Project Background: The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) forms the foundation of property boundary descriptions in Wisconsin. As part of the development of Wisconsin’s statewide PLSS database, the State Cartographer’s Office documented a consistent implementation of the Romportl System for identifying survey corners, including rules for unusual cases such as closing corners, non-conforming areas, excess or deficiency in section dimensions, and meander corners. The document serves as an authoritative guide to implementing the numbering system and as a baseline for the Wisconsin Statewide PLSS Database.
My Role: (As State Cartographer’s Office staff) Technical writing, cartography, and information design. Working under the direction of the Wisconsin State Cartographer, interpreted the surveying principles and translated them into diagrams and supporting documentation. The diagrams abstracted complex configurations found in original GLO survey plats into a consistent visual system showing how corner identifiers should be represented and assigned.
Public Link: PLSS Corner Numbering Standard, Extended Corner Numbering Standard
Stack: PostGIS/PostgreSQL, ArcGIS, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, original GLO survey plats
Features:
Technical Cartography – Developed a consistent visual language for translating complex PLSS configurations and historic survey records into clear diagrams explaining corner-numbering rules.
