Public Land Survey System (PLSS)

The Public Land Survey System (PLSS), also known as the Township and Range System, was a result of the Land Ordinance of 1785. The ordinance was developed over many years to help a young United States manage its newly acquired lands. "In 1776, the United States Congress of the brand-new Confederation of 13 states was faced with an urgent need for a national land policy. They had to devise some way to manage the western lands which had been ceded to the Confederation. Quick action was important for several reasons. Land had been promised to Revolutionary soldiers; a source of income was necessary to run the new country; and future states had to be carved out of the wilderness. Most important, a land policy which could be understood by the people on the frontier was needed" (Muehrcke and Muehrcke, 1992: p.225).

A grid system was designed that systematically partitioned land and provided a numbering scheme to identify sections of land. In Florida, the grid begins in the state capital of Tallahassee. A baseline runs east-west directly through Tallahassee. And a principle meridian runs north-south through the capital. These two lines serve as references for the grid system. Every six miles along the baseline measures a different 'township' and every six miles along the principle meridian measures a different 'range'. Numbers for townships and ranges increase away from the capital. The resulting grid is a collection of squares, called 'townships', roughly six miles by six miles, covering all of Florida.

The townships are not perfect squares because of the shape of the earth. The eastern and western sides of the townships are north-south lines. These lines come together at the poles so the townships are actually narrower on the northern side and wider on the southern side. In order to compensate for the distortion, townships occasionally break from the grid pattern. The result is a slightly staggered pattern for townships across the state.

Townships are divided into 36 sections, each roughly one mile by one mile (640 acres). Sections within each township are numbered, starting with 1 in the northeast and ending with 36 in the southeast. Sections can be divided into smaller areas, such as quarter-sections and quarter-quarter-sections; however, for our class project we did not deal with these smaller land sizes.

It is now possible to refer to a single square mile of land in Florida by saying it is "in section 23, 2 townships south, and 3 ranges east." The notation used for this example is "23S02E03". This is the notation used in the Florida Department of Revenue's tax records. Other styles of notation exist. For example, the same section may be referred to as "Sec. 23, T2S-R3E".

REFERENCE: Muehrcke, Phillip C. and Juliana O. Muehrcke. "Map Use: Reading, Analysis, and Interpretation." 3rd ed. JP Publications, Madison, WI (1992).

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