General law townships form the majority of civil townships in Michigan; these offer the most basic of services, and generally follow the boundary lines of survey townships. In sparsely populated areas of Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, a township may consist of several survey townships and cover hundreds of square miles. In other areas of the state, townships are typically the of land of a single survey township, or less, due to city formation, irregular geographical boundaries, or when one survey township has been subdivided into two or more civil townships.