If you are familiar with real estate or engineering design, you may have heard the word “plat” thrown around quite often. Now, if you have been wondering what plat maps are and who uses them, you’re in luck — just keep reading to discover the answers.
What Is a Plat Map?
Simply put, a plat map is a map showing how a tract of surveyed land is divided into lots. Plat maps contain property details such as:
- Size of the land
- Orientation of the tract of land
- Flood zones
- Easements
- Among others
Due to the sheer amount of information they contain, and the many symbols displayed, the average person may need help from an expert to make sense of a plat map.
However, as we’ll see in the net section, plat maps are extremely useful tools, so it’s a good idea to learn at least some basic facts about them.
Who Needs a Plat Map?
Anyone who deals with land in one way or another can benefit from gaining at least some familiarity with plat maps. This includes:
- Homeowners
- Land developers
- Realtors
- Government
Plat maps contain vital information such as land easements. A land easement is a situation where you own a tract of land, but another organization has permission to use it for certain purposes. For example, some properties include easements for laying railroad tracks or electrical wires.
If you are a homeowner or a land developer, you definitely want to know if a tract of land you own has easements. A plat map helps you find this and other important details.
Learn More About Engineering Design
Engineering design is a discipline full of interesting stories and bits of information. Below are some previous posts you can read to learn more about this fascinating topic.
- What is a kaizen event?
- What is civil engineering design?
- What is the engineering design process?
- Do good design engineers make good project managers?
Darnell Technical Services is an engineering design firm with extensive experience in a vast array of projects. Our headquarters are located in Santa Ana, California, and we have an office in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Contact us today by telephone (714-285-0082 (CA), 702-945-2899 (NV)) or through our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to learn more about all the technical instruments and materials we put at your disposal.