Deed Traverse Pro / Guides / Plotting metes and bounds

How to Plot a Metes and Bounds Description (and Check That It Closes)

Read the calls, convert the bearings and old units, compute coordinates, test the closure, track down the bad call and put the tract on the map. With a worked example you can check by hand.

By Alex Sanders, IAmTheMap LLC · October 18, 2026 · 10 minute read

What a metes and bounds description is

A metes and bounds description defines a tract by walking its boundary. It starts at a fixed point, then gives a series of calls, each a direction (the bearing) and a length (the distance), until it returns to the start. Calls may also name monuments ("to an iron rod found"), adjoining tracts ("along the south line of the Smith tract") or natural features ("with the meanders of the creek").

Two starting points are easy to confuse:

• Point of commencement (POC): a known, findable point such as a section corner or survey corner. Calls from the POC to the tract are tie calls. They locate the tract but are not part of its boundary.
• Point of beginning (POB): the first corner of the tract itself. The boundary runs from the POB and must return to it.

Before you plot

• Get the complete description, including every exhibit it references. Descriptions often continue across pages or sit in an exhibit at the back of the deed.
• Count the tracts. A single deed can describe several tracts, each with its own POB, plus less-and-except tracts that must be removed.
• Find the basis of bearings, if stated: magnetic, true (astronomic) or grid north, often with a reference line or a prior survey. It controls how the shape is rotated later.
• Note the units. Feet are common, but Texas descriptions often use varas, and older deeds everywhere use chains, links, rods and poles.
• Note the stated acreage and whether it says "more or less." It is your independent check at the end.

Read each call: bearings to azimuths

Deeds write bearings as quadrant bearings: start from north or south, turn a number of degrees toward east or west. "N 45°30'15" E" means start facing north and turn 45 degrees, 30 minutes, 15 seconds toward east. A quadrant bearing is never more than 90 degrees.

Math is easier with an azimuth, measured clockwise from north from 0 to 360 degrees. First convert degrees, minutes and seconds to decimal degrees, then apply the rule for the quadrant:

Some calls give a direction without a full bearing. "North" means azimuth 0°, "East" 90°, and so on. "With the fence," "along the creek" or "to the corner of the Jones tract" are calls to a feature or adjoiner, and the distance alone may not be enough to plot them faithfully.

Distances and historical units

Convert every distance to one unit, usually feet, before computing anything.

Compute the coordinates

Each call moves you north or south (the latitude) and east or west (the departure). With the azimuth and the distance in feet:

Start the POB at 0,0 (or at its real coordinates, if you have them) and add each call's latitude and departure in turn. The running totals are the corners of the tract.

Check the closure

If the description is perfect, the last call lands exactly back on the POB, so the latitudes add to zero and the departures add to zero. In practice they almost never do. The gap is the misclosure:

A precision of 1:5,000 means one foot of misclosure for every 5,000 feet of boundary. Many GIS and land teams use 1:5,000 as a working threshold for deed plots. It is a check on the description, not a survey standard; older descriptions often close worse, and a poor closure is a reason to look harder, not proof the deed is wrong.

Worked example: a tract that fails, and why

Here is a small Texas tract described with three calls in feet and one in varas, "containing 5.00 acres, more or less":

Converting the third call: 183.91 varas × 2.77778 = 510.86 feet. Running each call through the formulas:

The misclosure is √(2.052² + 0.033²) = 2.05 feet. On a 1,876-foot perimeter that is a precision of about 1:900 FAIL at 1:5,000.

Use the direction of the error to find the bad call

The error is almost entirely north-south: 2.05 feet of latitude against 0.03 feet of departure. An error that runs parallel to a call usually points to that call's distance. Only two calls run north-south, the second and the fourth, so those are the ones to check against the plat, the prior deed in the chain or the adjoining descriptions.

Say the prior deed and the recorded plat both show the last call as 425.85 feet. Rerun it with that distance:

Now the misclosure is 0.05 feet, a precision of about 1:36,000 PASS, and the computed area is 4.997 acres against 5.00 stated. The likely explanation is a copying error somewhere in the chain of title.

Why descriptions don't close

• Copying errors: transposed digits (42.50 written as 45.20), a dropped digit, or a call skipped when the description was retyped from an older deed.
• Wrong quadrant: an E written for a W, or N for S. The plot shows one leg folding back on itself.
• Unit confusion: varas read as feet, or chains as rods.
• Missing curve data: a call that follows a curve with only an arc length, so the chord cannot be computed.
• Calls to monuments or adjoiners: "to the corner of the Smith tract" with a distance that was never measured precisely. Courts generally give monuments and adjoiners priority over bearings and distances, so the written distance may simply be approximate.
• Old compass surveys: magnetic bearings measured with a compass and chain, which were never precise to a fraction of a foot.

When the error is large and does not run parallel to any single call, look for a missing call or a wrong quadrant. Plot the figure and look at its shape; a fold-back or an overlapping leg is easier to spot on a picture than in a table.

Curves

A curve call normally gives some combination of the radius, the central angle (delta), the arc length, the chord bearing and the chord distance, plus whether the curve turns to the right or the left. For the traverse, use the chord: it is a straight line from the start of the curve to its end, so it plugs into the same latitude and departure formulas. If the description gives only some of the elements, the rest can be derived:

For area, the chord is not enough. Add or subtract the circular segment between the chord and the arc, depending on whether the curve bulges out of the tract or into it.

Area and the stated acreage

Once the corners close, compute the area from the coordinates with the coordinate (shoelace) method, then divide square feet by 43,560 to get acres. Compare it with the stated acreage. Small differences are normal, especially with "more or less." A large difference, such as a stated 50 acres that plots at 5, usually means a missing call, a unit error or a description that was never meant to define the acreage precisely.

Put it on the map

A closed figure on local coordinates still floats. To place it with other GIS data:

1. Locate the POB. Use the tie calls from the POC, a found monument with known coordinates, or a corner shared with an already-mapped tract.
2. Choose the coordinate system. Most US land work uses the State Plane zone for the county, on NAD83. Be careful with older data on NAD27; mixing datums shifts tracts by a noticeable distance.
3. Rotate to the right north. Deed bearings may be magnetic, true or grid. If the basis of bearings differs from grid north in your coordinate system, rotate the figure about the POB by the difference. Matching a deed line to a known mapped line is a practical check.
4. Check against neighbors. Overlay adjoining tracts, survey lines or imagery. Gaps and overlaps are worth noting even when the description closes.
5. Export in the format your team uses: shapefile or geodatabase for GIS, KMZ for Google Earth, DXF for CAD, or a traverse file for ArcGIS Pro COGO.

Plotting checklist

• Complete description, all exhibits, every tract and exception identified
• Tie calls separated from boundary calls
• Every bearing converted to azimuth with the right quadrant
• Every distance converted to one unit, call by call
• Curves resolved to chords
• Misclosure and precision recorded
• Area compared with the stated acreage
• POB placed, coordinate system and datum recorded, rotation applied if needed
• Any discrepancy or correction documented with its source

Questions

This guide is general information for land and GIS professionals. It is not a survey, legal advice or a boundary determination. Deed plots are computational aids; where boundary location matters, consult a licensed surveyor. The example tract is illustrative.