Land size measured on Google Earth

[blunosr]

Hi, I wanted to estimate the size of one of my fields, which has an irregular shape so I figured out how to do that using Google Earth. More to the point, someone else figured it out, and I watched it on Youtube and got it to work.

I bought the land as 40 acres (as advertized), and I always thought it odd that the tax statement had it divided into three parts (20, 12, and 8ac) according to land use. There are two Property Identification (PID) numbers for the land, which do not match any of the numbers on the tax forms, although the tax form doesn't have PID numbers listed.

Anyways, it seems like the "40 acres" is actually only 32ac according to my measurements on Google Earth, and that matches two of the divisions on the taxes... I'm going to go into the tax office and get to the bottom of this!!!

I wonder how common it is for land to be bought and sold, and taxed, without really being the correct size?

You can see how to do the area measurement on Google Earth on this video:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnuRQE0_cIU]Using Polygons to Calculate Area in Google Earth - YouTube[/ame]

The Earthpoint site wants you to pay to sign up, but it does allow you to export to excel, which allows you to see the area without signing up.

Bye for now,

 

[MikeFarm]

Hi all

That was a good instructional video - I didn't know Google Earth had polygon editing features.

Getting the area of your fields is pretty useful, so is a basic map of your farm showing the fences, gates, buildings, water pipes, tanks etc. I have used QGIS to map my farm. Welcome to the Quantum GIS Project - it's an open source Geographic Information System. Of course it also can show you the area of a polygon of a field and much more. It's similar to ArgGIS (some of you may know that product) but QGIS free and open source.

I just used it a few months ago to work out where to put fences so that a 12 acre field became a 3, 4 & 5 acre fields.

Mike

 

[bcp]

I like this one:

Google Planimeter

Bruce

 

[greasemonkeyok]

If your land is adjacent to a public road or stream, your property boundary may actually be in the middle of the road or stream, not the fence line. A boundary line survey is always a good idea if the acreage amount is important to you.

 

[Gary Fowler]

A good survey is essential prior to purchasing any land. When we purchased our property, we found that the west boundary fence that was installed years ago by the landowner was actually over 70 feet off on SW corner and angled back to essentially the correct point on NW corner. Some other boundary markers were not correct with a small 1 acre corner hold out but the owner and I agreed to leave it as is until such time as he might sell it and then it has to be put right but it is only about 3 feet x 160 so not a big deal.

I sure doubt that they shorted you 8 acres, your tax records might be like mine. My place falls into 3 separated sections due to the way the road runs and some set backs. Someone else may be paying your taxes.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Oh yeah, middle of the stream for sure, that is where my SW corner is and the brass pin is visible in the bottom of the creek. Since you cant very well put in a corner fence post in the bottom of a creek bed, I had to use a nearby tree on the bank, and put in an L to go back about 70 feet to where I could hook back into the original corner. But I know where my line is now. I am hoping to buy the remaining property to the road frontage some day if the family ever decides to sell.
Good luck on your quest for actual records. Hope the truth doesnt end up costin you some money in back taxes.:laughing:

 

[rambler]

As I just mentioned at ytmag, a hiking & biking GPS (not the car map type) for $100 will do a pretty good job of calculating acres, and will be more 'believable' than trying to figure from googlemaps. It sure isn't legal, but it's a better estamate.

As mentioned, any roads or waterways can stumble you a bit - you might not have figured in the right of ways?

Our farm, the entire county road is on our property, not split 50-50 down the line. And, well, that is the messed up one, road builder didn't follow the surveyor's plans, then the surveyor's office burned and so the county now measures off the middle of the road but that ain't right...

So things do get messed up.

--->Paul

 

[Learning to Farm]

I used www.websoilsurvey.ncrs.usda.gov as was recommended because it will also give you your soil types. It is super accurate.

 

[newbury]

Two votes for QGIS. I've been using QGIS, and it's predecessors (WAMS, MOSS, and GRASS) off and on since the 70's.

Most of the US has been mapped. But nobody has tied all the lines together. I recently bought a piece of land that was being sold as 70 acres, more or less. It ended up being 67 acres after survey.

My Dad and Grandfather bought 20 acres, more or less in 1963 in Vt. Description basically had from the south fence to the north fence, from the road west to the cliff. When they sold it, and had it surveyed, it ended up being 30 acres, and they got paid for 30 acres.

As more and more areas get surveyed someone is due to end up being shorted.

For those of you that don't know there is lot's of free aerial photography you can download from USGS, as well as topo maps.

 

[charlz]

The assessor's office here has an online parcel map system that shows the boundaries on satellite images. Might be worth a look at their website.