A nation divided - into perfect square miles

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/nation-divided-perfect-square-miles

by Oatseller • 11 years ago

22 14 11 years ago

mnn.com

Oatseller• 11 years ago

the.jefferson.grid Instagram account linked in the article: https://instagram.com/the.jefferson.grid/

billpg• 11 years ago

Should have split the land into hexagons instead.

JoeAltmaier2• 11 years ago

Lets do that on Mars! A chance to start with a clean slate.

rtkwe2• 11 years ago

I'd go with tiling pentagons myself [0] Type 15 is a personal favorite.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagonal_tiling

ginko• 11 years ago

I wonder: Are there places where you can see necessary adjustments to account for the curvature of the Earth with this approach?

powera• 11 years ago

My understanding is that every 36 miles, you have actual latitude/longitude lines as the boundary, and a few of the sections are adjusted slightly so the rest are 1 mile by 1 mile. (I don't remember the exact details)

mjevans• 11 years ago

It's so difficult to keep latitude/longitude straight; which is both the reason for the correction and why I looked it up to be sure. Longitude is the measurement of east-west relative to another point of reference (the prime meridian). Latitude is the measure of angular distance from the equator.

Even though the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, at this scale it's effective enough to consider it one. Latitude lines will be parallel with each other. Longitude lines converge, more closely on the greater latitude parallel.

bradb3030• 11 years ago

My Dad always said the turn on the road here was because of that. https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1818501,-110.1911451,14z

johansch• 11 years ago

This stuff feels really alien to Europeans who visit the US. We're used to really weird looking polygons with way too many vertices when dividing the land...

(All of those vertices of course having some sort of historic explanation.)

As a city tourist though, I really like the grid street system.

oldfatslow• 11 years ago

Looks like my attempt at Cities: Skylines

A nation divided - into perfect square miles

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