ArcGIS Pro Legal Land Description Locator

ArcGIS Pro does not include a native locator for Canadian legal land descriptions. If you type "NE 14-032-21W4" into the ArcGIS Pro search bar, it returns nothing. Esri confirmed there are no plans to add DLS or NTS support — not even with the NATRF2022 datum update in version 3.7.

That's a problem if you're a GIS analyst at an oil and gas company, a geomatics engineer running cadastral surveys, or a land technician mapping pipeline corridors. Your data references DLS quarter sections and LSD parcels, but your GIS software doesn't know what they are.

Township Canada's ArcGIS Pro Python toolbox fills that gap. It adds a legal land description locator directly to ArcGIS Pro — search DLS and NTS descriptions from the search bar, batch convert tables of locations to feature classes, and display parcel boundaries on any map.

What the ArcGIS Pro Toolbox Does

The Township Canada Python toolbox (TownshipCanada.pyt) installs as a standard ArcGIS Pro toolbox and provides two main capabilities:

Search bar locator: Type any DLS or NTS description into the ArcGIS Pro search bar — LSD 06-32-048-07W5, NE 14-032-21W4, NTS 093P09 — and the locator returns the GPS coordinates and zooms to the location on your map. No tab-switching, no copy-paste from a browser.

Batch geoprocessing tool: Point the tool at a table or feature class containing a column of legal land descriptions. It converts every row to a point feature class with latitude, longitude, and the original description. Optionally, it also generates a polygon feature class with the parcel boundaries. Useful for processing well inventories, pipeline route tables, or mineral rights spreadsheets that list hundreds of DLS locations.

When You Need This

GIS Analysts in Oil and Gas

An oil and gas company receives a spreadsheet of 400 well locations from the AER, all in LSD format. The GIS team needs these as a point layer in their ArcGIS Pro project to run proximity analysis against existing infrastructure. Without a locator, they'd export the spreadsheet, convert it in a separate tool, re-import the coordinates, and join them back. The batch geoprocessing tool does it in one step inside ArcGIS Pro.

Surveyors Planning Fieldwork

A surveying firm wins a contract to monument 25 section corners along a proposed highway corridor in Saskatchewan. The contract lists each location as a DLS section reference — 32-048-07W3, 33-048-07W3, and so on. The survey crew lead opens ArcGIS Pro, runs the batch tool against the contract table, and gets a point layer with all 25 locations plotted on the survey grid and satellite imagery. Field planning that used to take an afternoon now takes five minutes.

Environmental Consultants

An environmental assessment covers 60 quarter sections across the Peace River region of British Columbia. Some locations use DLS notation (the Peace River block) and others use NTS grid references (the rest of BC). The toolbox handles both systems in the same batch run — no need to separate the file by survey system.

How to Set It Up

Step 1: Get a Township Canada API Key

The ArcGIS Pro toolbox connects to the Township Canada API. Sign up at the API portal — plans start at $20/month for 1,000 requests. If you're running batch jobs with hundreds of locations, the Scale plan at $100/month covers 10,000 requests.

Step 2: Install the Toolbox

Download TownshipCanada.pyt from the ArcGIS Marketplace. In ArcGIS Pro, right-click Toolboxes in the Catalog pane, select Add Toolbox, and browse to the .pyt file. The toolbox appears under your project toolboxes.

Step 3: Configure Your API Key

Open the toolbox properties and enter your Township Canada API key. The key is stored in your ArcGIS Pro project settings — you only configure it once.

Step 4: Search or Batch Convert

To search: Type a legal land description in the ArcGIS Pro Locate pane. The Township Canada locator appears as a search provider alongside Esri's default geocoders.

To batch convert: Open the Township Canada geoprocessing tool from the toolbox. Select your input table, specify which column contains the legal land descriptions, and run. The output is a point feature class (and optional polygon feature class) added directly to your map.

Example: Converting a Well Inventory

Input table with 3 rows:

After running the batch tool, ArcGIS Pro displays three points on the map — one near Rocky Mountain House, one near Drayton Valley, and one near Drumheller. Each point carries the original LLD, GPS coordinates, province, and survey system as attributes.

Export the results as a shapefile, geodatabase feature class, or any format ArcGIS Pro supports. For teams that also need data in KML, GeoJSON, or CSV, the Township Canada web app offers those export formats on the Business plan.

Beyond ArcGIS Pro

Township Canada's Esri integration also includes an Experience Builder widget for ArcGIS Online — add legal land description search with autocomplete to any web map experience — and a Survey123 integration for field data collection. If a field crew enters a DLS description in a Survey123 form, the integration auto-converts it to GPS coordinates and updates the feature layer.

For GIS teams working outside Esri, Township Canada also has integration guides for Mapbox, Leaflet, OpenLayers, and MapLibre. And for data teams running Snowflake, there's a SQL-native conversion function.

Try a Legal Land Description Now

Enter LSD 06-32-048-07W5 into the [Township Canada converter](/?example=LSD 06-32-048-07W5) to see what the ArcGIS Pro locator returns — GPS coordinates, parcel boundary, and survey grid context for a 40-acre parcel near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. Or search any DLS or NTS description from your own project files.