Deed plot, closure, and area
Plots confirmed deed calls (lines and curves), then reports the misclosure, its direction, the precision ratio, and the area closed by the implied closing line. Courses are never adjusted unless you choose to.
The deed closes within 0.42 US survey ft (1:4,400). The area is 4.88 US survey ac, computed with an implied closing line of 0.42 US survey ft.
- The US survey foot was deprecated by NIST and NOAA on January 1, 2023. Use it only for legacy data.
| Point | Northing | Easting |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.000 ftUS | 0.000 ftUS |
| 2 | 500.000 ftUS | 0.000 ftUS |
| 3 | 500.000 ftUS | 425.000 ftUS |
| 4 | 0.000 ftUS | 425.000 ftUS |
| 5 | -0.420 ftUS | 0.000 ftUS |
- Misclosure direction
- Precision
- Total length
- Area
- Acres
- Area basis
Provenance
- Computed by
- survey.land.deed-plot 1.1.0, core 0.1.0
- Model
- Latitudes and departures; curves advance by their chord (given, or 2R·sin(Δ/2) on a bearing of the incoming tangent ± Δ/2) and add or subtract their circular segment R²(Δ − sin Δ)/2; area by coordinates with the implied closing line
- Accuracy
- Exact arithmetic on the confirmed calls. The area includes the closing line's gap, stated in the result.
- Notes
- 1 shown with the answer
- Cites
- Ghilani, C. D., and Wolf, P. R., Pearson, Elementary Surveying: An Introduction to Geomatics; Robillard, W. G., and Wilson, D. A., Wiley, Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles
Something look off?
How we got thisFormula, worked example, sources, and proof
Model: Latitudes and departures; curves advance by their chord (given, or 2R·sin(Δ/2) on a bearing of the incoming tangent ± Δ/2) and add or subtract their circular segment R²(Δ − sin Δ)/2; area by coordinates with the implied closing line
Accuracy: Exact arithmetic on the confirmed calls. The area includes the closing line's gap, stated in the result.
When to use this: Use this when a deed's calls have to become a figure: it plots the lines and curves you confirmed, reports the misclosure and its direction, the precision ratio, and the area closed by the implied closing line. It is the way to see whether a description closes before the coordinates are used.
Limitations: It plots what the deed says: courses are not adjusted unless you ask, because a survey retracement is about what the document calls for. Monuments and calls for adjoiners govern over bearings and distances on the ground, and that is a surveyor's judgement rather than arithmetic. The area includes the closing gap, which the result states.
Worked example: A lot that misses closure. Source: Hand-computed latitudes and departures (Ghilani and Wolf, ch. 10): misclosure about 0.42 ft over 1,850 ft, precision about 1:4,400.
You enter
- Calls
- N 0°00'00" E, 500 ftUS N 90°00'00" E, 425 ftUS S 0°00'00" E, 500 ftUS S 89°56'36" W, 425 ftUS
You get
- Misclosure
- 0.42 US survey ft
- Misclosure direction
- S 0°01'42" E
- Precision
- 1:4,400
- Total length
- 1,850 US survey ft
- Area
- 212,589 US survey ft²
- Acres
- 4.88 US survey ac
- Area basis
- computed with an implied closing line of 0.42 US survey ft
- Notice
- Parsing and arithmetic aid. Boundary determination requires a licensed surveyor and the governing records.
Review: Not yet independently reviewed by a licensed surveyor.
Last verified: 2026-09-18, when a maintainer last confirmed this tool's sources at the issuer. See the sources ledger.
Status: version 1.1.0, core 0.1.0. See this tool in the verification report.
Changes
- 2026-09-19, fixed: The deed plotter now reports in the unit the calls use. It converted every call to US survey feet, so a deed in meters came back in US survey square feet, international feet were shifted by 2 parts per million, and each result carried the legacy-unit warning three times. Mixing US survey and international feet is now refused, as in the traverse tool. Tool version 1.1.0. It is now stable, matching the University of Memphis worked traverse (0.182 ft misclosure, 36,320 sq ft). Changelog
Checked against: 20 golden test vectors (download the test vectors, each with its source and tolerance). See how results are checked and every source.
Sources
- Elementary Surveying: An Introduction to Geomatics, Ghilani, C. D., and Wolf, P. R., Pearson, 16th edition. Chapters 10 (traverse computations) and 12 (area by coordinates).
- Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles, Robillard, W. G., and Wilson, D. A., Wiley, 7th edition. Chapter 5 (metes-and-bounds descriptions, calls, and the order of importance of conflicting elements). Read free.