Townships Tiles

Vector tiles for PLSS (Public Land Survey System) township boundaries and labels. Townships are the primary subdivision of the PLSS grid, typically 6 miles square.

Endpoint

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

Returns a Mapbox Vector Tile containing township polygon geometries and label points. Zoom range: 0 – 14.

URL Parameters

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
z*	number	Zoom level (0-14).
x*	number	Tile X coordinate.
y*	number	Tile Y coordinate.
key*	string	Your API key.

Source Layers

townshipsTownship polygon boundaries.z0-14

townships_labelsTownship label points (centroids).z0-14

Attributes

Available Attributes

Attribute	Type	Description
township_id	string	Unique township identifier.
township_name	string	PLSS township designation (e.g. "T83N R24W").
display_name	string	Human-readable display name for the township.
friendly_name	string	Enriched name from Minor Civil Division (MCD) data when available.
state_name	string	Full name of the state containing this township.
type	string	Feature type classification (e.g. "township").
feature_id	string	BLM (Bureau of Land Management) feature identifier.

Code Examples

curl

curl "https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/tiles/townships/10/210/380.mvt?key=YOUR_API_KEY" \
  --output tile.mvt

JavaScript

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/tiles/townships/10/210/380.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/townships/10/210/380.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.

Styles

Fetch a renderer-ready style for the Townships layer from the unified /v1/styles endpoint. The response includes sources, layers, attribution, zoom ranges, and label deduplication baked in. Use the landmapmagic npm package for one-line install per target, or call the API directly.

MapLibre / Mapbox

Identical payload either way — Mapbox GL JS consumes a MapLibre Style Spec v8 doc as-is. Pick the keyword that reads best in your codebase.

URL (maplibre)

GET https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/styles?target=maplibre&layers=townships&key=YOUR_API_KEY

URL (mapbox)

GET https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/styles?target=mapbox&layers=townships&key=YOUR_API_KEY

JavaScript

const style = await fetch(
  'https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/styles?' +
    new URLSearchParams({
      key: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
      target: 'maplibre', // or 'mapbox' — same response
      layers: 'townships',
    })
).then((r) => r.json());

map.setStyle(style);

Leaflet

URL

GET https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/styles?target=leaflet&layers=townships&key=YOUR_API_KEY

JavaScript

import { mountLeafletLandMap } from 'landmapmagic/leaflet';

await mountLeafletLandMap({
  apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
  map,
  layers: ['townships'],
});

Google + deck.gl

URL

GET https://api.landmapmagic.com/v1/styles?target=google&layers=townships&key=YOUR_API_KEY

JavaScript

import { mountGoogleLandMap } from 'landmapmagic/google';

await mountGoogleLandMap({
  apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
  map,
  overlay,
  layers: ['townships'],
});

Township boundaries are enriched with Minor Civil Division (MCD) names from the US Census Bureau where available. The friendly_nameattribute provides the local MCD name (e.g. "Lincoln Township") in addition to the standard PLSS designation. PLSS data is sourced from the BLM National PLSS dataset and covers the 30 western and midwestern PLSS states.