Sections Tiles

Vector tiles for PLSS section boundaries and labels. Sections are one-mile-square subdivisions of townships, forming the fundamental unit of the Public Land Survey System.

Endpoint

GEThttps://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/tiles/sections/{z}/{x}/{y}.mvt

Returns a Mapbox Vector Tile containing section polygon geometries and label points. Zoom range: 8 – 16.

URL Parameters

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
z*	number	Zoom level (8-16).
x*	number	Tile X coordinate.
y*	number	Tile Y coordinate.
key*	string	Your API key.

Source Layers

sectionsSection polygon boundaries.z8-16

sections_labelsSection label points (centroids).z8-16

Attributes

Available Attributes

Attribute	Type	Description
id	number	Unique internal feature identifier.
section_id	string	Unique section identifier combining township and section info.
section_number	string	Section number within the township (1-36).
section_label	string	Display label for the section (e.g. "Sec 14").
plss_id	string	Full PLSS identifier (e.g. "IA090830N0240W0SN140").
display_name	string	Human-readable display name including township context.
type	string	Feature type classification (e.g. "section").
feature_id	string	BLM (Bureau of Land Management) feature identifier.

Code Examples

curl

curl "https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/tiles/sections/12/843/1522.mvt?key=YOUR_API_KEY" \
  --output tile.mvt

JavaScript

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/tiles/sections/12/843/1522.mvt?key=YOUR_API_KEY"
);
const data = await response.arrayBuffer();
console.log("Tile size:", data.byteLength, "bytes");

Python

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/tiles/sections/12/843/1522.mvt",
    params={"key": "YOUR_API_KEY"}
)
print(f"Status: {response.status_code}, Size: {len(response.content)} bytes")

Response

Response Headers

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile
Content-Encoding: gzip
Cache-Control: public, max-age=86400

The response body is a binary MVT protobuf. Empty tiles return HTTP 204 with no body.

Section data is sourced from the BLM National PLSS dataset. Each township is subdivided into 36 sections numbered in a serpentine pattern. Sections cover the 30 western and midwestern PLSS states. Non-PLSS states (primarily in the original 13 colonies and Texas) are not included in this layer.