Square Miles to Townships (mi² to twp)
1 square mile equals 0.02777766667 townships (rounded).
How to convert square miles to townships
To convert square miles to townships, multiply the number of square miles by 0.02777766667. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply townships by 36.000144 (rounded).
townships = square miles × 0.02777766667
Example: 10 square miles = 0.2777766667 townships.
About these units
Square Mile (mi²)
640 acres or about 2.59 km². Used for the area of cities, states and countries in the US and UK.
A thousand Roman paces, mille passus, became the mile, and under Elizabeth I Parliament fixed the statute mile at eight furlongs, or 5,280 feet, in place of the older Roman-based value. The square mile inherits that length. Its most famous use came in the United States: the Land Ordinance of 1785 started the Public Land Survey System so that western land could be surveyed and sold to pay war debts, beginning with the Seven Ranges in eastern Ohio.
In that system a section is roughly one square mile, or 640 acres, and a township is 36 sections in a square six miles on a side. One square mile is nearly 2.59 million square meters. Chicago's Midway International Airport, at about 650 acres, covers roughly 1.02 square miles. Beware the phrase mile square: a region 20 miles square has 400 square miles, but so does a rectangle 10 by 40 miles. The US survey version of the mile was retired from 1 January 2023, but the international square mile remains the unit for cities, states and countries in the US and UK.
1 square mile = 2,589,988.11 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Square mile; Wikipedia: Public Land Survey System; Wikipedia: Mile
Township (twp)
36 sections: a square 6 survey miles on a side (23,040 acres). Used in US land records.
Western descriptions of land such as T2N, R3E refer to townships in the survey sense: a block six miles on a side, nominally 36 square miles or 23,040 acres. T counts six-mile steps north or south of a baseline, while R counts six-mile steps east or west of a principal meridian. Each region's grid hangs from an initial point where the two meet, and one meridian can serve several states, as the Willamette Meridian does for Oregon and Washington.
Meridians converge toward the pole, so townships would shrink to the north if nothing were done. Surveyors therefore laid standard parallels, commonly every 24 or 30 miles, to reset the width. The first lands laid out this way were the Seven Ranges in eastern Ohio, and Jefferson is credited with promoting the system to support a country of independent farmers. A survey township is distinct from a civil township, which is a unit of local government in about 20 states and may follow the survey lines or ignore them.
1 township = 93,239,944.93 square meters (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Township (United States); Wikipedia: Public Land Survey System
Related conversions
- Townships to square miles (reverse)
- Square miles to square meters
- Square miles to square kilometers
- Square miles to hectares
- Square miles to square inches
- Square miles to square feet
- Square miles to square yards
- Square miles to acres
- Square miles to square centimeters
- Square miles to square millimeters
- Square miles to tsubo
- Square miles to pyeong
- Square miles to rai (Thai)
- Square meters to townships
- Square kilometers to townships
- Hectares to townships
- Square inches to townships
- Square feet to townships
- Square yards to townships
- Acres to townships
See all area units.