A gore is an irregular parcel of land, as small as a triangle of median in a street intersection or as large as an unincorporated area the size of a township. In old English law, a gore was a small, narrow strip of land. In modern land law and surveying a gore is a strip of land, usually triangular in shape, as might be left between surveys that do not close. In some northeastern U.S. states (mainly northern New England), a gore (sometimes a land grant or purchase) remains as an unincorporated area of a county that is not part of any town, has limited self-government, and may or may not even be populated.