Arizona Surface Management Responsibility

Arizona State Land Department

Tile Series

Metro Series

County Series

Land in Arizona is owned by a wide variety of organizations, including federal, tribal, private, and the state trust. It is important for citizens, businesses, private landowners, and various agencies to know who owns each section of land. The original landownership database was created as a cooperative project between the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD) and the U.S. Forest Service in the 1980s. To facilitate the use of this data, the ASLD developed the Arizona Surface Management Responsibility map series in 1994 using AML scripts to generate the maps.

In 2005, the map series underwent extensive modernization to make use of the enormous cartographic improvements available in ArcGIS software. Today this map series consists of a statewide map, two metro area maps, twelve county maps, and 134 half-degree tile maps. These maps show state, federal, and private landownership; road networks; hydrological features; topography; cities; towns; and points of interest. They have been purchased by a wide variety of customers ranging from governors to school children.

State map

The state map is the centerpiece of the Arizona Surface Management Responsibility map series. It provides a good overview of landownership across the state of Arizona.

Tile series

Using half-degree arcs, each of these maps is set at a scale of 1:100,000, making them the most detailed of the series. Each map has the same layout with an index that allows users to find a map quickly. These maps are dynamically created by a program developed in-house using ArcObjects. This allows them to be created and exported to PDF in one large batch for quick and frequent updates. These maps cover tiles located in the Grand Canyon and northwest Phoenix.

County/Metro series

The fourteen maps of this series are created in batch with ArcObjects from templates, allowing each of them to have their own custom page layout. The county map here is of Yavapai County. The metro map shows the Tucson area and is used to help understand land management in federal and state lands surrounding this city.

Courtesy of the Arizona State Land Department.

Map Book Page [PDF]

State and Local Governments Maps

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