Baseline (surveying)
survey line
In surveying, a baseline is generally a line between two points on the Earth's surface and the direction and/or distance between them.
In a triangulation network, at least one distance between two stations needs to be measured to calculate the size of the triangles by trigonometry.
In relative Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) surveying, a baseline is the line between two GNSS receivers to determine the 3D coordinate difference.
United States
In the United States Public Land Survey System, a baseline is specifically the principal east-west line (i.e., a parallel) upon which all rectangular surveys in a defined area are based. The baseline meets its corresponding principal meridian (north-south line) at the point of origin, or initial point, for the land survey. For example, the baseline for Nebraska and Kansas is shared as the border for both states, at the 40th parallel north.
More specifically a baseline may be the line that divides a survey township between north and south.
"Baseline Road"
Many communities in the United States have roads that run along survey baselines, many of which are named to reflect that fact. Some examples:
In Huntsville, Alabama, Meridian Street (originally called Base Line Road) and a portion of US 231/US 431 follow the Huntsville meridian from the US 72 interchange to the Flint River north of Meridianville, the latter of which is named for the meridian itself.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, Baseline Road follows the baseline used by surveyors of the Louisiana Purchase.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baseline (surveying)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.