Ohio/Boundaries/Townships

Inexplicably, township lines were entirely omitted from the TIGER import, even though TIGER has extensive township border data. That data is often quite inaccurate anyways, so it's up to us to draw the townships by hand. Note that the townships described on this page are civil townships, even though in Ohio they almost always correspond to survey townships.

Finding a township line

The first step in mapping a township boundary depends on the part of the state:

• In counties surveyed under the Public Land Survey System, or in the Connecticut Western Reserve, aerial imagery often shows prominent roads that run through the county in a roughly 5–6 mile grid. Even where there aren't roads, you can still make out different farms along these lines.
• In counties surveyed using the older metes and bounds method, such as in the Virginia Military District, the first step is often to identify prominent natural features that might have served as an obvious township line in the past, then go out and see whether there's a township welcome sign anywhere near there. For example, the smallest of rivers often serve as township lines because they were significant obstacles back when it took awhile to get to the nearest bridge.

Now fire up your favorite editor and switch to the USGS Topographic Maps layer. This layer displays a bunch of public domain topographic maps from the USGS laid out side-by-side. Township boundaries are generally shown as black dashed lines. They can be hard to spot, especially where they are overlaid on roads and creeks, so it helps to keep the above observations in mind.

Note that the topo layer can be slightly misaligned in places. It helps to switch back to aerial photography once in awhile, as a sanity check. If you know the general vicinity of a township line, you may also be able to spot a change in pavement quality where one township has repaved their road up to the township line.

Some editors have features that make it easy to see the topo layer at the same time you edit features on top of it. For example, if you use Potlatch 2, press D to make OSM features translucent; you can also turn on the "Show floating window" option in the Layers menu for a side-by-side display. In iD, press W to toggle wireframe mode.

Finally, you may be able to convince your county's engineer's office to let OSM copy the township lines from their official road map. But whatever the case, whenever possible, OSM prefers on-the-ground knowledge to simply copying from an existing map.

Mapping a township line

Township boundary relations are tagged with type=boundary + boundary=administrative + border_type=township + admin_level=7 + name=*. You may also specify a Wikipedia article or a website URL. See WikiProject United States/Boundaries for a comparison of admin_level=* usage in each state.

In Ohio, townships sometimes extend past county lines, for example Washington Township in Franklin County. A city or village is subordinate to its township unless it withdraws from the township by establishing a coextensive paper township. (If the municipality then expands into an additional county, a separate paper township is sometimes established.)

Do not map paper townships. Boundary relations should exclude the paper townships of municipalities that have withdrawn. In other words, the township starts at the welcome sign, not necessarily where the township was historically. In cases where a withdrawn municipality has annexed some land but its paper township's boundaries have not been updated – it happens sometimes – the adjacent real township should overlap the municipality. If the paper township's name does not match its municipality's name, tag the municipality's relation with the paper township's name in alt_name=*.

Many roads are built along township lines, and township lines can also follow rivers or other natural features. If the township boundary is legally defined as the feature, then they should be welded together. Please do not make the feature itself a member of the boundary relations. However, if the boundary is not legally defined as the feature, or if a road section doesn't literally straddle the boundary (with either side named and maintained differently etc.), then they should be mapped separately, as the feature might not be exactly aligned with the legal boundary (and could become further misaligned in the future).

At the center of some townships lies a population center of the same name. The GNIS import introduced place=town POIs to represent these population centers. Each POI represents a settlement with an indefinite boundary, rather than the administrative unit represented by the boundary relation, so the name=* tag should not contain the word "Township".

Progress

Status of township mapping by county.

As of 2023, most of the progress has been in central, north-central, and southwestern Ohio. Use this Overpass turbo query to find correctly tagged townships.

County code	County name	Total townships	Townships mapped	Notes
ADA	Adams	14	0
ALL	Allen	12	5	Auglaize, Jackson, Monroe, Bath, and Richland Townships are completed.
ASD	Ashland	15	15
ATB	Ashtabula	27	5	Colebrook, Orwell, Wayne, Williamsfield, and Windsor Twps are completed.
ATH	Athens		0
AUG	Auglaize		0
BEL	Belmont		0
BRO	Brown		0
BUT	Butler	13	13
CAR	Carroll	14	14
CHP	Champaign	12	0
CLA	Clark		0
CLE	Clermont	14	14
CLI	Clinton		0
COL	Columbiana		0
COS	Coshocton	22	22
CRA	Crawford	16	16
CUY	Cuyahoga	2	2
DAR	Darke		0
DEF	Defiance	12	12
DEL	Delaware	18	18
ERI	Erie	9	9
FAI	Fairfield		0
FAY	Fayette		0
FRA	Franklin	17	17
FUL	Fulton		0
GAL	Gallia	15	15
GEA	Geauga	16	16	Incorrectly tagged; also excludes CDPs from townships
GRE	Greene		0
GUE	Guernsey		0
HAM	Hamilton	12	12
HAN	Hancock		0
HAR	Hardin		15
HAS	Harrison		0
HEN	Henry	13	13
HIG	Highland		0
HOC	Hocking		0
HOL	Holmes		0
HUR	Huron	19	19
JAC	Jackson		0
JEF	Jefferson		0
KNO	Knox	22	22
LAK	Lake		0
LAW	Lawrence	14	14
LIC	Licking	25	25
LOG	Logan	17	17
LOR	Lorain	18	18
LUC	Lucas		0
MAD	Madison		14
MAH	Mahoning		0
MAR	Marion	15	15
MED	Medina	17	17
MEG	Meigs		0
MER	Mercer		0
MIA	Miami		0
MOE	Monroe	18	18
MOT	Montgomery		0
MRG	Morgan		0
MRW	Morrow	16	16
MUS	Muskingum		0
NOB	Noble		0
OTT	Ottawa	12	12
PAU	Paulding		0
PER	Perry		0
PIC	Pickaway	15	15
PIK	Pike	14	0
POR	Portage	14	14
PRE	Preble		0
PUT	Putnam	15	15	Need tagging improvements (some names might be wrong + add Wikipedia).
RIC	Richland	18	18
ROS	Ross		0
SAN	Sandusky		0
SEN	Seneca	15	15
SCI	Scioto		0
SHE	Shelby		0
STA	Stark	17	7
SUM	Summit	9	9
TRU	Trumbull	25	25
TUS	Tuscarawas		0
UNI	Union	14	14
VAN	Van Wert		0
VIN	Vinton	12	8
WAR	Warren		0
WAS	Washington		0
WAY	Wayne	16	5	Completed Congress Twp., Plain Twp., Paint Twp., Clinton Twp., and Chester Twp.
WIL	Williams	12	12	Montpelier needs to be clipped.
WOO	Wood		0
WYA	Wyandot	13	13