If you've read a deed, a royalty check stub, or a division order for minerals in most western and midwestern states, you've seen the Public Land Survey System at work: section, township, range. These coordinates describe your property on a grid that was designed before the United States Constitution was written.

The Problem

After the Revolutionary War, the new United States government owned vast tracts of western land (at the time, "west" meant Ohio), ceded by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Congress at the time did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation, so land sales provided an important revenue stream. The existing system in the eastern colonies used metes and bounds, property descriptions based on landmarks, compass directions, and distances ("beginning at the old oak tree, thence north 40 chains..."). This system was imprecise, led to overlapping claims, and caused endless boundary disputes.

Thomas Jefferson's Grid

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed dividing the western territories into a systematic grid, originally envisioning a nation of "yeoman farmers". His original plan used decimal-based units, but the final system adopted by Congress in the Land Ordinance of 1785 (passed May 20, 1785) used the mile as the base unit.

The system works like this:

For a detailed explanation of how to read these coordinates, see our post on section, township, and range.

The Surveys

Starting with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio and moving west, government surveyors physically walked the land, measuring with chains and compasses, and marking section corners with wooden posts, piles of stones, or notches on trees. The work was grueling, dangerous, and sometimes inaccurate. Rivers, mountains, and hostile terrain meant that section lines didn't always land where the math said they should.

These survey imperfections are why some sections are not perfect squares. The "fractional sections" along the north and west edges of a township, and the occasional "government lot" that replaces a regular quarter section, exist because the surveyors had to reconcile the flat grid with the curved surface of the earth and the realities of the terrain.

Expansion Westward

As the United States expanded, new principal meridians and baselines were established for different regions. Oklahoma uses the Indian Meridian. Kansas and Nebraska use the Sixth Principal Meridian. Montana, the Dakotas, and parts of several other states use various meridians specific to their region.

By the time the surveys were complete, the PLSS covered over three-quarters of the continental United States, from Ohio west to the Pacific and north into Alaska. About 30 states use the system today.

Why Texas Is Different

Texas was an independent republic before joining the United States and handled its own land distribution using a system of grants, surveys, and patents rather than the federal grid. This is why Texas uses abstracts, surveys, and blocks instead of section-township-range.

The Texas panhandle uses a block-and-section system based on railroad land grants that resembles PLSS but is part of Texas's own survey system. No part of Texas was surveyed under the federal PLSS. The adjacent Oklahoma Panhandle (formerly "No Man's Land") was surveyed under the federal Cimarron Meridian and does use the PLSS.

Why It Still Matters

The PLSS is the foundation of property identification in mineral-producing states. Every deed, every lease, every pooling order, and every division order uses PLSS coordinates to describe where the minerals are. State oil and gas commissions organize well data by section, township, and range. County records are indexed the same way.

When you enter a property in MinRight with its section, township, and range, you're using a system that was designed 240 years ago and still works today. The grid that Jefferson envisioned in 1784 is the same grid on your check stub in 2026.