This map of Minnesota cities, townships, and counties was published by MnGeo in January 2019. The primary data set for the map is the "Cities, Townships, and Unorganized Territories" (MnCTU) data maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Other reference data on the map include County Seats and Other Cities, County Boundaries, Interstate, US Trunk, and State Trunk Highways, Major Rivers, Lakes, County and State Boundaries. The download is a PDF file with embedded layers that can be printed at E-scale (36" x 48").

The TRS digital data set represents the Township, Range, and Section boundaries of the state. Beginning in the late 1840s, the federal government began surveying Minnesota as part of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). The resulting network of land survey lines divided the state into townships, ranges, sections, quarter sections, quarter-quarter sections and government lots, and laid the groundwork for contemporary land ownership patterns.

The township, range and section boundaries were digitized at MnGeo (formerly known as the Land Management Information Center - LMIC) from stable base mylars of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 30-minute latitude by 60-minute longitude map series (1:100,000-scale). All survey lines were extended across water bodies despite the fact that U.S. Geological Survey base maps depict them only on land. This addition allows all sections and townships to be represented as closed areas (polygons) ensuring that township and range location can be determined for any point in the state. It also means that the data set is not affected if lake levels change over time.

Minnesota's original public land survey plat maps were created between 1848 and 1907 during the first government land survey of the state by the U.S. Surveyor General's Office. This collection of more than 3,600 maps includes later General Land Office (GLO) and Bureau of Land Management maps up through 2001. Scanned images of the maps are available in several digital formats and most have been georeferenced.

The survey plat maps, and the accompanying survey field notes, serve as the fundamental legal records for real estate in Minnesota; all property titles and descriptions stem from them. They also are an essential resource for surveyors and provide a record of the state's physical geography prior to European settlement. Finally, they testify to many years of hard work by the surveying community, often under very challenging conditions.

The deteriorating physical condition of the older maps (drawn on paper, linen, and other similar materials) and the need to provide wider public access to the maps, made handling the original records increasingly impractical. To meet this challenge, the Office of the Secretary of State (SOS), the State Archives of the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), MnGeo and the Minnesota Association of County Surveyors collaborated in a digitization project which produced high quality (800 dpi), 24-bit color images of the maps in standard TIFF, JPEG and PDF formats - nearly 1.5 terabytes of data. Funding was provided by MnDOT.

In 2010-11, most of the JPEG plat map images were georeferenced. The intent was to locate the plat images to coincide with statewide geographic data without appreciably altering (warping) the image. This increases the value of the images in mapping software where they can be used as a background layer.

Olmsted County does not own or maintain this layer. The file geodatabase was downloaded and published to ArcGIS Online on August 1st, 2025. Related information is from the MN Geospatial Commons from August 1, 2025.Township, Range, and Section (TRS) Boundaries, Minnesota - Resources - Minnesota Geospatial CommonsThe source for this data set is the USGS 30-minute latitude by 60-minute longitude map series (1:100,000-scale). The following list identifies each of the 71 Minnesota maps in the series by its published map name and the date of map publication. The publication dates range between 1976 and 1994:Ada 1984, Aitkin 1994, Albert Lea 1985, Angle Inlet 1985, Anoka 1985, Austin 1985, Basswood Lake 1977, Battle Lake 1986, Baudette 1976, Bigfork 1976, Blackduck 1978, Brainerd 1986, Brookings 1985, Brule Narrows 1978, Cass Lake 1977, Cavalier 1985, Clear Lake 1985, Crane Lake 1978, Crookston 1984, Detroit Lakes 1986, Duluth 1980, Ely 1994, Fairmont 1985, Fargo 1985, Faribault 1985, Fosston 1985, Glencoe 1986, Grafton 1985, Grand Forks 1985, Grand Marais 1977, Grand Portage 1985, Grantsburg 1985, Grygla 1977, Hallock 1985, Hastings 1985, Hibbing 1978, International Falls 1978, La Crosse 1990, Lake Itasca 1985, Lake Minnewaska 1986, Litchfield 1986, Littlefork 1978, Milbank 1985, Mille Lacs Lake 1985, Montevideo 1986, Mora 1991, New Ulm 1986, Oak Island 1985, Outer Island 1990, Pigeon Point 1985, Pine River 1976, Pokegama Lake 1992, Port Wing 1980, Rochester 1985, Roseau 1976, Saganaga Lake 1976, Saint Paul 1985, Sandstone 1980, Sioux Falls 1985, St. Cloud 1986, Stillwater 1985, Thief River Falls 1985, Tracy 1986, Two Harbors 1976, Upper Red Lake 1978, Vermillion Lake 1994, Wahpeton 1985, Wheaton 1985, Willmar 1986, Winona 1985, Worthington 1985.Many irregularities occur when the theory of the PLSS is applied to land surveys on the ground. However, the PLSS acts today as the structure around which all legal descriptions of land parcels in Minnesota are based. It is, therefore, an important framework for most geographic investigations that require information about land ownership. PLSS information is intended to be used for regional studies conducted at the county or multi-county level. The section lines are not meant to be used as legal records.

Map Catalog is powered by the Memento Server software and provides a continuous view across multiple geospatial PDFs. The PDF maps currently available are 1K USNG (topo and aerial) maps from four metro counties(Anoka, Carver, Dakota and Ramsey), 1K USNG Topo of cities and state parks in Minnesota, 10K USNG Aerial maps for Minnesota, US Topo for the metro and Dakota County Park maps, City Street maps and Half Section maps. Map update frequency varies.

Washington County, MN Tax Parcels. An independent manual check of the parcel data was made at the time of its initial development whereby all geo-coded parcel legal descriptions in a PLSS section were reinterpreted and examined for accuracy and completeness on the hard copy check plot. As each new plat or lot division occurs, a similar process is repeated for the new additions during the maintenance period. Multiple lines of ownership indicating ambiguity in property line location are merged into a single line if falling within 3 feet of each other. Gaps or overlaps in these situations are not shown. In some cases where two lines converge; e.g., where at one end the two lot lines are within 0.50 feet of each other and at the other end they are within 6.00 feet of each other they may be merged because the average discrepancy is 3 feet or less. Where gaps or overlaps exist in excess of approximately 3 feet in width, they are shown with text notation indicating APPARENT GAP or AREA OF DISCREPANCY.

About this itemThanks for your interest in our public access GIS hub site. This site brings many of our most popular mapping resources together in one place for easy access. Users can quickly find the content they need and discover other areas of interest by exploring a series of Map Galleries. For those seeking GIS data, an open data portal with a growing collection of local datasets is just a click or tap away. Author/ContributorKyle ObergOrganizationCook CountyOrg Websiteco.cook.mn.us

This map shows the free and open data status of county public geospatial (GIS) data across Minnesota. The accompanying data set can be used to make similar maps using GIS software.

Counties shown in this dataset as having free and open public geospatial data (with or without a policy) are: Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Carlton, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cook, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Grant, Hennepin, Hubbard, Isanti, Itasca, Kittson, Koochiching, Lac qui Parle, Lake, Lyon, Marshall, McLeod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Renville, Rice, Scott, Sherburne, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, St. Louis, Traverse, Waseca, Washington, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine.

To see if a county's data is distributed via the Minnesota Geospatial Commons, check the Commons organizations page: https://gisdata.mn.gov/organization

To see if a county distributes data via its website, check the link(s) on the Minnesota County GIS Contacts webpage: https://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/county_contacts.html

The TRSQ digital data set represents the Township, Range, Section, Quarter section, and Quarter-quarter section divisions of the state. Beginning in the late 1840s, the federal government began surveying Minnesota as part of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). The resulting network of land survey lines divided the state into townships, ranges, sections, quarter sections, quarter-quarter sections and government lots, and laid the groundwork for contemporary land ownership patterns. The quarter-quarter section remains an important subdivision for rural Minnesota since these lines are used to define local boundaries, roads, and service areas. All survey lines were extended across water bodies despite the fact that U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) base maps depict them only on land. This addition allows all sections and townships to be represented as closed areas ensuring that township and range location can be determined for any point in the state. It also means that the data is not affected if lake levels change over time. The township, range and section boundaries were digitized at MnGeo (formerly the Land Management Information Center - LMIC) from the USGS 30' x 60' map series (1:100,000-scale). Quarter section and quarter-quarter section subdivisions were calculated using the section lines. They were not digitized from original plat book survey lines or from the meandered lines that surveyors laid out around water bodies. The existence of government lots within a quarter-quarter section is recorded in the data set; however, the government lot boundaries were not digitized. If a quarter-quarter section contains more than one government lot, the number of lots is recorded -- see Lineage, Section 2, for more detail. Note: For most uses, TRSQ has been superseded by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) 1:24,000-scale 'Control Point Generated PLS' data set which is free online. See https://gisdata.mn.gov/dataset/plan-mndnr-public-land-survey for more information. Also, many county surveyors offices have more accurate PLS (Public Land Survey) data sets. For county webpages and contact information, see http://www.mngeo.state.mn.us/cty_contacts.html .

This set of GeoTIFF and EPPL7 files represents the Minnesota Department of Transportation's County Highway Map Series in georeferenced image formats. These images of the standard Mn/DOT County Highway Map product can be used in GIS systems and overlayed with other GIS information. The origin of this data is Mn/DOT's Microstation CAD system, where all linework, feature type coding, and symbolization is stored and updated. To produce these data sets, Mn/DOT exported the data from Microstation into postscript files. LMIC then imported the data into GIS systems for georeferencing and further processing. The GeoTIFF data are distributed in both County Highway Map map sheet and full county extents; EPPL7 data sets are distributed only as full county files. Map collars have been removed. This data set represents the Mn/DOT County Highway Map as of January 1, 2002.

A mosaic of compartment maps for Section 30 of the Cloquet Forestry Center. These maps were produced in 1914 to catalog the existing conditions of the CFC.

Produced by adding GCPs at each corner of a clipped map image associated to the corresponding PLSS compartment corner based on legal definition of 1/4, 1/4 Section (ie. Section 30, NE1/4 NE1/4).

First-order Transformation

RMSE = 1 (4 GCPs)

Compilation of 100,000 scale bedrock maps from MGS County Atlas products beginning with C-08, Fillmore County and ending with the newest Atlas, the Bedrock Geology of Lake County Minnesota for a total of 45 100k maps. Because the maps have been created by different authors over a significant time period, the edges of each map do not always align with adjacent maps and for this project no attempt was made to harmonize them. In addition, the map units may also have been change or updated between products separated by several years. However, in this compilation a single attribute table has been developed that includes all of the map labels as well as descriptive text and other fields that allow interpretations to be made between maps. Many of the map units are also part of the 2011 bedrock geologic map of Minnesota which provides another method of interpretation and description. In addition, the source field identifies which Atlas the polygons were originally part of and which will have additional information available about the units. This map is the foundation of a database of 100,000 bedrock mapping in Minnesota that is intended to be updated as new County Atlas mapping is completed and as time permits to be used to develop a common index of bedrock geologic units in Minnesota.

This dataset contains polygons representing individual taxed parcels or individual tax-exempt parcels tracked for taxing purposes. It also contains polygons representing the locations of multiple tax properties. In the case of multiple tax properties, several parcel polygons may be stacked on top of one another. These are multiple tax parcels that cannot be delineated on a two-dimensional map, including both taxed and tax-exempt parcels. The parcels are represented with identical geometries but have different parcel IDs and associated tax attributes. The PID field contains the property ID number for each parcel.Link to Attribute Table Information: http://gis.hennepin.us/OpenData/Metadata/County%20Tax%20Parcels.pdf

© This dataset is compiled monthly by the Hennepin County GIS Office from parcel geometry that is created and maintained by the Hennepin County Resident and Real Estate Services Survey Division and tax attributes extracted from the Hennepin County Real Estate Services property tax information system.

These are the counties in Minnesota that currently have a Story Map. Click on the county you wish to view and select the link to go to the story.

This dataset represents the county boundaries, as recognized by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. There are 87 counties in Minnesota.

The Development Rights Maps for Dakota County, Minnesota. These maps are intended to aid townships in determining future development rights of parcels within their jurisdiction. The maps show owner name, acreage, year a house was built, and year a parcel was last divided or reassembled for each parcel. Please note, last division information is only reliable for parcels altered after 1984.

The Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map (DFIRM) Database depicts flood risk Information And supporting data used to develop the risk data. The primary risk; classificatons used are the 1-percent-annual-chance flood event, the 0.2-percent- annual-chance flood event, and areas of minimal flood risk. The DFIRM Database is derived from Flood Insurance Studies (FISs), previously published Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs), flood hazard analyses performed in support of the FISs and FIRMs, and new mapping data, where available. The FISs and FIRMs are published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The file is georeferenced to earth's surface using the UTM projection and coordinate system. The specifications for the horizontal control of DFIRM data files are consistent with those required for mapping at a scale of 1:12,000.

This dataset includes high quality (800 Dots Per Inch - DPI), 24 bit color images of Minnesota's original Public Land Survey (PLS) plats created during the first government land survey of the state from 1848 to 1907. Currently housed at the Office of the Secretary of State, these plats were created by the U.S. Surveyor General's Office. This collection of more than 3,600 maps also includes later General Land Office (GLO) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) maps - up to the year 2001.

Minnesota's survey plat maps serve as the fundamental legal records for real estate in the state; all property titles and descriptions stem from them. They also serve as an essential resource for surveyors and as an analytical tool for the state's physical geography prior to European settlement. Finally, they serve as a testimony to years and years of hard work by the surveying community, often under challenging conditions.

In recent years the deteriorating physical condition of the older maps and the needs of technologically more sophisticated researchers, who require access to the maps, have made handling the original paper records increasingly less practical. To meet this challenge, the Office of the Secretary of State, the State Archives of the Minnesota Historical Society, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, MnGeo (formerly the Land Management Information Center - LMIC) and the Minnesota Association of County Surveyors collaborated in a digitization project which produced images of the maps in standard TIFF, JPEG and PDF formats - nearly 1.5 terabytes worth of data. Funding was provided by the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Animal Ordinances is an interactive web map that provides a simple Minnesota county map over Google Maps. When a county is selected by clicking on it, a brief set of information about Animal Ordinances in that county is provide. Additionally, a link to the full ordinance is provided.

The 2022 cartographic boundary KMLs are simplified representations of selected geographic areas from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). These boundary files are specifically designed for small-scale thematic mapping. When possible, generalization is performed with the intent to maintain the hierarchical relationships among geographies and to maintain the alignment of geographies within a file set for a given year. Geographic areas may not align with the same areas from another year. Some geographies are available as nation-based files while others are available only as state-based files. The cartographic boundary files include both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs often are defined in partnership with state, local, and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some housing and population. The generalized boundaries of most incorporated places in this file are based on those as of January 1, 2022, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). The generalized boundaries of all CDPs are based on those delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2020 Census.