The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1785 to survey land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, following the end of the American Revolution. Beginning with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio, the PLSS has been used as the primary survey method in the United States. Following the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory platted lands in the Northwest Territory. The Surveyor General was later merged with the United States General Land Office, which later became a part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Today, the BLM controls the survey, sale, and settling of lands acquired by the United States.
History
Originally proposed by Thomas Jefferson to create a nation of "yeoman farmers", the PLSS began shortly after the American Revolutionary War, when the federal government became responsible for large areas of land west of the original thirteen states. The government wished both to distribute land to Revolutionary War soldiers in reward for their services and to sell land as a way of raising money for the nation. Before this could happen, the land needed to be surveyed.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 marks the beginning of the Public Land Survey System. The Confederation Congress was deeply in debt following the Declaration of Independence. With little power to tax, the federal government decided to use the sale of the Western Territories to pay off war debt. The PLSS has been expanded and slightly modified by Letters of Instruction and Manuals of Instruction, issued by the General Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management, and is still in use in most of the states west of Pennsylvania, south to Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, west to the Pacific Ocean, and north into the Arctic in Alaska.
Origins The original colonies (including their derivatives Maine, Vermont, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia) continued the British system of metes and bounds. This system describes property lines based on local markers and bounds drawn by humans, often based on topography. A typical, yet simple, description under this system might read "From the point on the north bank of Muddy Creek one mile above the junction of Muddy and Indian Creeks, north for 400 yards, then northwest to the large standing rock, west to the large oak tree, south to Muddy Creek, then down the center of the creek to the starting point."
Particularly in New England, this system was supplemented by drawing town plats. The metes and bounds system was used to describe a town of a generally rectangular shape, on a side. Within this boundary, a map or plat was maintained that showed all the individual lots or properties.
There are some difficulties with this system: Irregular shapes for properties make for much more complex descriptions. Over time, these descriptions become problematic as trees die or streams move by erosion. It was not useful for the large, newly surveyed tracts of land being opened in the west, which were being sold sight unseen to investors.
In the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognizing the United States, Britain also recognized American rights to the land south of the Great Lakes and west to the Mississippi River. The Continental Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 and then the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to control the survey, sale, and settling of the new lands. The original 13 colonies donated their western lands to the new union, for the purpose of giving land for new states. These include the lands that formed the Northwest Territory, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. The state that gave up the most was Virginia, whose original claim included most of the Northwest Territory and Kentucky. Some of the western land was claimed by more than one state, especially in the northwest, where parts were claimed by Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, all three of which had claimed lands all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Application The first surveys under the new rectangular system were in eastern Ohio in an area called the Seven Ranges. The Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey is at a point on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border between East Liverpool, Ohio, and Ohioville, Pennsylvania, on private property. A National Historic Landmark marker commemorating the site lies on the side of a state highway, exactly to the north of the point.
Ohio was surveyed in several major subdivisions, collectively described as the Ohio Lands, each with its own meridian and baseline. The early surveying, particularly in Ohio, was performed with more speed than care, with the result that many of the oldest townships and sections vary considerably from their prescribed shape and area. Proceeding westward, accuracy became more of a consideration than rapid sale, and the system was simplified by establishing one major north–south line (principal meridian) and one east–west (base) line that control descriptions for an entire state or more. For example, a single Willamette Meridian serves both Oregon and Washington. County lines frequently follow the survey, so there are many rectangular counties in the Midwest and the West.
Non-PLSS regions
The system is in use in some capacity in most of the country, but large portions use other systems. The territory under the jurisdiction of the Thirteen Colonies at the time of independence did not adopt the PLSS, with the exception of the area that became the Northwest Territory and some of the southern states. This territory comprises Georgia, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. The old Cherokee lands in Georgia use the term section as a land designation, but it does not define the same area as the section used by the PLSS. Maine uses a variant of the system in unsettled parts of the state. Parts of Texas, western New York, northwest Pennsylvania, western Georgia, western Kentucky, middle and western Tennessee, and northern Maine use state-developed survey systems similar to PLSS.
Other major exceptions to PLSS are: California, before statehood in 1850, was only crudely surveyed with the boundaries of Spanish and Mexican land grants (ranchos); since statehood the PLSS was used to convey government lands. Georgia surveyed its remaining central and western lands into a grid of land lots. Most were surveyed from 1819 through 1821 immediately upon the cession of all former Spanish lands to the U.S. Hawaii adopted a system based on the Kingdom of Hawaii native system in place at the time of annexation. Louisiana recognizes early French and Spanish descriptions called arpents, particularly in the southern part of the state, as well as PLSS descriptions. Alabama recognizes Spanish-era land claims, especially near the coast. New Mexico uses the PLSS but has several areas that retain original metes and bounds from Spanish and Mexican rule. These take the form of land grants similar to areas of Texas and California. As an extension, there are some New Mexico based Mexican land grants in south central Colorado. Ohio's Virginia Military District was surveyed using the metes and bounds system. Areas in northern Ohio (the Connecticut Western Reserve and United States Military District) were surveyed with another standard, sometimes referred to as Congressional Survey townships, which are five miles (8 km) on each side instead of the six miles standard implemented by the PLSS. Texas has a hybrid of its own early system, based on land grants made in Spanish Texas, and a variation of the PLSS. Wisconsin had French settlement prior to the PLSS in the areas of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. Both areas were initially divided using the French Long Lot system along the water frontage. The most noticeable artifact of this system is visible on maps and satellite images in that the general street grids of Green Bay, Allouez, Ashwaubenon and De Pere are all aligned to the Fox River, being rotated about 25° from north, in contrast to the standard east-west grid of the surrounding townships in Brown County. Michigan had French settlement prior to the PLSS along the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, and near Sault Ste. Marie, Marquette, and Ypsilanti. These are all examples of the French long lots. Parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming were settled as Donation Land Claims. Some were established before the Willamette Meridian, and those established after were often poorly surveyed and did not correspond to the PLSS.
Survey design and execution
Commonly used terms Aliquot part: A terse, hierarchical reference to a piece of land, in which successive subdivisions of some larger area are appended to the beginning of the reference. For example, SW1/4 NW1/4 S13, T1SR20E refers to the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 13 of Township 1 South Range 20 East (a 40-acre parcel). See further discussion below. Base Line: A parallel of latitude, referenced to and established from a designated initial point, upon which all rectangular surveys in a defined area are based. Also spelled baseline. BLM: Bureau of Land Management, the successor agency to the General Land Office Cadastral: Having to do with the boundaries of land parcels. Corner: The point of intersection of any two actual or potential survey lines, defining one corner of a rectangular land parcel. Lot: A subdivision of a section which is not an aliquot part of the section but which is designated separately. A lot is typically irregular in shape, and its acreage varies from that of regular aliquot parts. Initial point: The starting point for a survey; the intersection point of the Principal meridian and the Base line in a given region. Land grant: Historically a land grant is an area of land to which title was conferred by a predecessor government, usually English/British, Spanish or Mexican, and confirmed by the U.S federal courts after the territory was acquired by the United States. Monumentation: Placement and/or marking of physical objects on the ground to mark survey points and lines. Original survey: The first official government survey in a given area. Unless fraud is proven, the original survey is legally valid and binding, regardless of any surveying errors that may have occurred. All subsequent subdivision, sale, etc. must proceed from the original survey. In the United States, most original surveys were done under contract with the General Land Office. Principal meridian (PM): A true meridian running through an initial point, which together with the baseline form the highest level framework for all rectangular surveys in a given area. The list of all principal meridians is given below. Public domain (land): Land owned and managed by the Federal government. Synonymous with public lands. National Parks and National Forests are a large part of the public domain land today. The original public domain included the lands that were turned over to the Federal Government by the original thirteen states and areas acquired from the native Indian tribes or foreign powers. Range (Rng, R): A measure of the distance east or west from a referenced principal meridian, in units of six miles. Section: An approximately one-square-mile block of land. There are 36 sections in a survey township. Township (Twp, T): A square parcel of land of 36 square miles, or a measure of the distance north or south from a referenced baseline, in units of six miles.