Wiktionary
n. (''in former British colonies'') A tract of land authorized to be developed as a town and then surveyed and marked out with streets
Wikipedia
A townsite is a legal subdivision of land for the development of a town or community. In the historical development of the United States, Canada, and other former British colonial nations, the filing of a townsite plat (United States) or plan (Canada) was often the first legal act in the establishment of a new town or community.
Usage examples of "townsite".
Wicks purchased 60 sections from the railroad company at two and one-half dollars an acre, laying out a townsite in streets and lots.
United States might take nearby property for a new townsite and the fact that there might be some surplus lots to be sold did not deprive the transaction of its character as taking for public use.
That week the house filled with steady boarders, men who were building houses on the townsite or on their homestead claims.
Philadelphia thus soon became the basis of a prosperity which no other townsite on the Delaware had been able to attain.
What good anyone could come to on this ashen townsite I could not see.
Of course if someone who left the new townsite of Hell were to spread a few rumors as he went along, it could have quite an effect on the new town.
She overheard Chance saying they would have to claim the townsite itself plus several thousands of acres surrounding it between them to thwart the starting of a second town close by.
The townsite had been inaugurated in 1815 but so far had not been surveyed.
Where bottomed-out lodes had been struck near more sensible townsites, their towns tended to hang on under new management.
Even now, from Bingtown to the mouth of the Rain Wild River there stretched a trail of abandoned townsites that marked the path of their attempts at settlement.