Final answer:
A plat is a map of a part of a city or township showing areas such as subdivisions with individual lots, used to interpret land division within political units like cities or states. It reflects the specific man-made borders and patterns of land ownership, from grid systems to more irregular metes and bounds systems.
Step-by-step explanation:
A plat is a map of part of a city or township showing some specific area, such as a subdivision made up of several individual lots. When looking at ways we interpret maps to explain the division of land, we use plats to define man-made borders within political units such as cities, states, or countries. They display divisions of land that help detail the specific boundaries and subdivisions within townships, which might include natural and man-made features.
Townships often serve as the basic unit of division in a grid system, and these can be subdivided further into sections, quarter sections, and so on, depending on the jurisdiction and the land distribution practices of the region. The plat plays a critical role in conveying how the land is parceled out and can reveal the organized structure of land division in areas that follow a grid pattern or the more chaotic appearances in regions that use the metes and bounds system.
The concept of the quadrangle (quad) is related, as it represents a topographic map sheet published by the United States Geological Survey with boundaries defined by lines of longitude and latitude, further emphasizing the importance of map interpretation in the context of land division.