Township (United States)

A township in some states of the United States is a small geographic area.

The term is used in four ways.

  1. A survey township is a geographic reference used to define property location for deeds and grants as surveyed and platted by the United States General Land Office (GLO). A survey township is nominally six by six miles square, or 23,040 acres (93.200 km2).
  2. A civil township is a unit of local government, generally a civil division of a county. Counties are the primary divisional entities in many states, thus the powers and organization of townships varies from state to state. Civil townships are generally given a name, sometimes written with the included abbreviation "Twp".
  3. A charter township, found only in the state of Michigan, is similar to a civil township. Provided certain conditions are met, a charter township is mostly exempt from annexation to contiguous cities or villages, and carries additional rights and responsibilities of home rule.
  4. A justice township, found only in the state of Nevada, is not a government. Townships in Nevada correspond only to justice courts, which handle low-level, low-value lawsuits and misdemeanors with some court functions carried out by constables. Townships can only contain one incorporated city with geographic areas larger than the city's boundaries to include unincorporated land.
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