Baseline (surveying)


In surveying, a baseline is a line between two points on the earth's surface and the direction and distance between them. In a triangulation network, at least one baseline needs to be measured to calculate the size of the triangles by trigonometry.
In the United States Public Land Survey System, a baseline is the principal east-west line upon which all rectangular surveys in a defined area are based. The baseline meets its corresponding principal meridian at the point of origin, or initial point, for the land survey. For example, the baseline for Nebraska and Kansas is shared as the border for both states, at the 40th parallel north.
More specifically a baseline may be the line that divides a survey township between north and south.

"Baseline Road" in the United States

Many communities in the United States have roads that run along survey baselines, many of which are named to reflect that fact. Some examples:
In Canadian land surveying, a base line is one of the many principal east-west lines that correspond to four tiers of townships. The base lines are about apart, with the first base line at the 49th parallel, the western Canada–US border. It is, therefore equivalent to the standard parallel in the US system.

Ontario

In Ontario, a baseline forms a straight line parallel a geographical feature that serves as a reference line for surveying a grid of property lots. The result of this surveying is the concession road and sideline system in use today.
Many prominent Ontario baselines lie on the surveyed boundaries of land treaties signed with First Nations peoples. For example, several baselines in Waterloo Region and Brant County follow the borders of the Haldimant Tract land grant to the Six Nations confederacy, leading to the patchwork road and lot network, surveyed parallel to the western edge of the tract, which can seen in this area to this day. Jones Baseline which runs through Wellington County and Halton Region follows the original survey route marked by Augustus Jones after the Between the Lakes Purchase in 1792.