(Andy Martin - post to County HP egrouop) 
A question for map geeks:

	Picacho Peak state park covers about 5 square miles,
	with a boundary that roughly looks like this:

	https://binged.it/2X49RrG

	Why does Google maps show the park enlarged to about
	20 square miles ? 

	https://goo.gl/maps/Ys7f2TEcnH4sTaqM8


Extra Credit:

	Open Street Maps, Apple maps, and Wikimapia also
	show a huge park, and each has their own version
	of the boundary.
	These maps can be seen here:

	  http://www.cohp.org/writers/AndyMartin/PicachoPeakSP/

	In the files:

	  5 Apple Maps.jpg
	  6 Stamen Terrain (matches Open Street Maps.jpg
	  7 Mapquest (ViaMichelin and wikimapia are similar).jpg

	What the heck is going on ?


Notes on the maps at 
cohp.org/writers/AndyMartin/PicachoPeakSP

Likely the most accurate:
	1 USGS Quad with highlighted border.jpg

https://azstateparks.com/picacho/explore/maps
Tourists - please don't venture off this map:
	2 StateParkMap (portion of park).jpg

Matches Pinal county GIS - not Bing's fault:
	3 Bing (similar to USGS 1 to 100000).jpg

Park much larger:
	4 Google Map with quad border highlight.jpg

Apple maps not easy to find on web - luckily ;)
	5 Apple Maps.jpg

Maybe geologic map of the lava rock ?
	6 Stamen Terrain (matches Open Street Maps.jpg

The Park has swallowed Red Rock - Tucson is next:
	7 Mapquest (ViaMichelin and wikimapia are similar).jpg



					ANSWER

Re: A question for map geeks
From: David Eddy
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2019 15:33:35 MST

Andy,
As background, I'm a former (retired) geologist with the BLM in the Phoenix office (15 yrs).  Unless I'm mistaken, you are also an Arizona resident, so I'll apologize up front since you probably already know much (or maybe even all) of what follows.
From a short look into the online master title plats (MTPs), land records, and land status maps, as far as I can tell the situation is probably as follows.  The smaller area (bing map) represents former BLM lands that were transferred to the state under the Recreation & Public Purposes Act for use as a state park (apparently in the 1970s).  That area is surrounded by a much larger block of land that are State Trust lands shown on the MTPs as an "SS" (state selections), meaning they were likely lands that the state selected in lieu of allocated school sections in other locations that were unavailable due to being within Indian Reservations, National Forests, National Parks, etc.  (A look at the state land status maps show a pattern of mountainous areas being BLM lands while the surrounding valleys are state lands which the state selected because they would be more amenable to economic development.)  As I understand it, there are strict, state constitution defined, limitations on what the state can do with State Trust lands (they can only be used for the highest monetary return or something like that), and adding them to state parks, as well as any other preservation uses, is not allowed, though I believe the state legislature can make exceptions to that rule.  So if the true current state park boundary is the larger one, then they must have recently passed a law transferring those lands (which are only a small fraction of the much larger block of surrounding state lands) to the state park.  I would suggest contacting the Arizona State Lands Department to inquire about it since they are the ones in charge of managing, and disposing of or transferring, state trust lands.  (In my experience, finding AZ state government actions, proceedings, decisions, etc. online is difficult to impossible, especially when compared to the online availability of Federal government info.)  Good luck & hope that helped.
Dave


(Andy Martin)
Many thanks to those that shed some light on this
    topic.

(David Eddy)
>>you are also an Arizona resident, so I'll apologize up front since you probably already know much (or maybe even all) of what follows.

    Yes, I live in Tucson. I learned a lot about
    AZ State Lands from your good overview.

    Found a nice GIS site for AZ state lands:

http://gis.azland.gov/webapps/parcel/?loc=-111.3680,32.6175,12&layers=3,2,0

    It shows Picacho Peak State Park, and state lands
    around the Park. Blue is grazing leases, yellow
    is farming. You can click on the parcels to see
    who is leasing them.

    In any case for now I'm thinking Bing maps Picacho
    Peak S.P. about right, and Google, Apple, Open Street Maps
    and Wikimapia should review where they got their
    park boundary info from

    These online maps agree better on other State parks - Catalina State Park AZ for example.