Donna and Mary: > I will comment on your last paragraph: Township names > usually have no relationship to being in or near the > town by the same name. Though I have searched, I have not yet found any relationship of L.A. townships to *anything.* They have no officers, no town halls, no selectmen, no councils, no PTA, no Jaycees, no mention on any map that I can find, no purpose, and no function. The ONLY hint I have is the fact that the original L.A. townships, as listed in the 1880 L.A. Co. history, each have a named "seat of justice." My *GUESS* is that townships had something to do with the county court system, like county superior court districts, or maybe some kind of divisions in the county for purposes of the sheriff. I get an odd feeling that if you asked a citizen living in Malibu Township in 1920 what or where Malibu Township was, he wouldn't know. The whole west side, and the northern part of the south bay, was in La Ballona Township in the late 1800s. The 1923 L.A. Co. history population table suggests that "Santa Monica Township with city" was carved out prior to 1890; so had "Redondo Township, including Hermosa Beach and Hermosa City," and "Comption Township and city." "Gardena Township" was carved out between 1900 and 1910, as was "Malibu Township with Sawtelle city." I don't know, but I sort of guess that Malibu Township may have arced over the top of Santa Monica Township, in 1920 or so, from Malibu to Sawtelle and may or may not have included another strange entity named Westgate in a belt from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica. By the way, for states with real townships, like Ohio, look at the DeLorme state atlas and gazetteer books to grapple with those. I don't have the Ohio volume, but do have Illinois, and the townships, with their boundaries, are clearly marked (though not indexed like towns are). The DeLorme atlases really are indespensible for most of the country. The southern California DeLorme atlas is useless for townships or other similar entities, but it does show where wide- place-in-the-road semivillages are. The atlases usually run about $17 per state. Lester ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.