This rectangular survey system is now know as the Public Land Survey System. Under the cadastral system the public domain is plotted from a principal meridian (running north and south) and base line (running east and west) into a grid of squares approximately 6 miles to the side, called "townships." The township is further divided into sections of one-mile squares containing 640 acres. Sections are numbered 1-36 from the upper right hand corner. The sections can be further subdivided into quarter sections of 160 acres. The quarters can be divided into half-quarters of 80 acres or into quarter-quarter sections of 40 acres, etc.



There are three distinct areas represented by the PLSS:

1. Jeffersonian

2. Texas Abstracts

3. Eastern USA Counties and Towns

The description above represents the Jeffersonion or section township range land grid. HTSI PLSS Specifications are as follows: The PLSS data is completely attributed with respect to meridian, township, range, and section numbers Digital Data Coverage is the lower 48 states and Alaska Scale: 1:24,000 Format: Shapefiles, Geodatabase, ASCII, Landmark Z. other formats by request. Projection: LAT\LON NAD 27 can be projected to any projection sold by county