Glossary
Back to DeedSketchMeander line
A meander line is a surveyed traverse that approximately follows the bank of a lake, river, or other body of water. It is not the legal boundary. The actual boundary is the water’s edge — typically the ordinary high water mark — which can shift over time, so water-bounded parcels cannot be plotted as a fixed polygon.
Also called: meander · riparian boundary
Meander line vs. the real boundary
When the original surveyors reached water, they ran a meander line near the shore to estimate area and close the survey — but the land actually runs to the water. Courts generally treat the water boundary (ordinary or mean high water mark), not the meander line, as the property limit.
Because water moves, the boundary moves with it through accretion, erosion, and reliction. That is fundamentally different from a fixed metes-and-bounds corner.
Why DeedSketch flags them
A water boundary is not a fixed bearing and distance, so any polygon drawn from a meander or riparian description is approximate and can be misleading. DeedSketch flags water-boundary descriptions as outside its reliable range rather than presenting a false-precision shape.
Related terms
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