Ottawa County Townships

Political Townships - Ottawa County consists of the following Townships:

Township boundaries are approximately in the following locations,
with political townships shown in black, surveyed townships marked in red:

Map background:  Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey

Land surveyed in the western part of Ottawa county is a part of the 1819-20 Congress Lands survey, land in the eastern portion is a part of the Firelands Grant of the Connecticut Western Reserve.  The northern boundary of Ottawa County follows the "Fulton Line", the original boundary between Ohio and Michigan.    Land to the north of the Fulton Line is based on the Michigan land survey of 1815.

See more information on:
Information on the federal township and range system
The Public Land Survey System
Ohio Land Grants and Sales

Markings on the map above are approximate.  It and the discussion above are intended for genealogical purposes only and are not meant to be an in-depth reference on this topic.  Governmental township and section maps should be utilized to determine the exact location of property.  Please advise the County Coordinator should it be found that any sections are shown in the wrong township.

Surveyed Townships - Legal Descriptions

Legal descriptions of the surveyed townships do not always correspond to the political townships, especially where the political townships are not six miles square.  Townships are identified by their location relative to central "meridians", which run north-south and "baselines", which run east-west in each survey tract.   Legal townships are referred by rows of "Townships" north or south of the reference meridian and by "Ranges" east or west of the reference.  E.g., a section of land may be known as "Township 7 North, Range 14 East, Section 1".   On the above map, it would be located within the political township of Benton.

Section Numbers

Sections are numbered within the surveyed townships according to the following convention:

6	5	4	3	2	1
7	8	9	10	11	12
18	17	16	15	14	13
19	20	21	22	23	24
30	29	28	27	26	25
31	32	33	34	35	36

See more information here related to locating land within a section:
Information on the federal township and range system

Population - 1990 & 2000 Census - by entity

Entity	1990	2000
.
Ottawa County	40,029	40,985
.
Allen Township	3,177	3,591
Bay Township	1,276	1,294
Benton Township	2,471	2,621
Carroll Township	1,735	1,931
Catawba Island Township	3,148	3,157
Clay Township	5,267	5,118
Danbury Township	4,410	4,631
Erie Township	1,454	1,328
Harris Township	2,765	3,009
Portage Township	1,600	1,634
Port Clinton City	7,106	6,391
Put-In-Bay Township	556	763
Salem Township	5,064	5,517

Ottawa County Census 2000 Quick Facts

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