united states public land system )township and range system) completed

This was capitalism and white agrarian democracy on the march, inscribing the values of private property and family farming into the very landscape, while hastening the dispossession of Native Americans, Mexicans, and other inhabitants of the land. Under the system, each township measures six miles square and contains thirty-six one-square-mile sections each comprising 640 acres, typically divided into smaller units such as quarter sections (160 acres).Ĭhain by chain, section by section, more than a billion acres-from the Allegheny Mountains to the Pacific Ocean-became part of the expanding grid. Their work formed part of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), the grid of townships and sections conceived in the 1780s by Thomas Jefferson and others that configured how the United States grew from a collection of East Coast states to a continent-spanning behemoth. Jones traversed this patch of prairieland with a crew of his own, using Gunter’s chains to run their section lines, and marking the corners of those sections with slabs of stone. On June 6, 1857-159 year earlier almost to the day-a United States surveyor named Jonathan P. To understand what’s at stake for the veteran land surveyor requires a step into the past. An online table shows PLSS Cadastral National Spatial Data Infrastructure (CadNSDI) data set availability.The crew commences its dig, June 10, 2016. Photo by author. Use the 'Add Data' tool at the top of the map.įor GIS users, PLSS data layers are available through the BLM’s REST service endpoint.

The National Map Viewer displays 'BLM Public Land Survey System (PLSS)'. US Topo maps published 2013-present have a Public Land Survey System layer that can be turned on and off. US Topo maps published 2009-2012 do not include any PLSS data. PLSS was created to divide parcels of public land it is not useful for the accurate location of points and should not be confused with coordinate systems like latitude/longitude, UTM, or the State Plane Coordinate System.įor states that have Public Land Surveys:Īlmost all historical topographic maps (1884-2006) include PLSS tic marks or gridlines.

Sections can be further subdivided into quarter sections, quarter-quarter sections, or irregular government lots. Townships are subdivided into 36 one-mile-square sections. The PLSS typically divides land into 6-mile-square townships. PLSS surveys, which are available for portions of land in 30 southern and western states, are made by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is a way of subdividing and describing land in the United States.

United states public land system )township and range system) completed